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LOITERINGS 



IN 



Pleasant Paths 



MARION HARLAND 



Author of " The Dinner Year-Book,^'' " Common Sense in the Household,^ 
Etc, 



Tyu^.TyiaAA^^Ay^ 






NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

743 AND 745 Broadway 
i88o 



?S -3.007 

,Lfe 



COPYRIGHT BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 



Trow's 
Printing and Bookbinding Company, 
^ 201-213 East 12th Street, 

NEW YORK. 



INTRODUCTION. 




HEN I began the MS. of this book, it was with 
the intention of including it in the *' Common 
Sense in the Household Series," in which 
event it was to be entitled, ** Familiar Talks from 
Afar." 

For reasons that seemed good to my publishers and 
to me, this purpose was not carried out, except as it 
has influenced the tone of the composition; given to 
- each chapter the character of experiences remembered 
and recounted to a few friends by the fireside, rather 
than that of a sustained and formal narrative, penned 
in dignified seclusion, amid guide-books and written 
memoranda. 

This is the truthful history of the foreign life of an 
American family whose main object in *' going on a 
pilgrimage" was the restoration of health to one of its 
members. In seeking and finding the lost treasure, we 
found so much else which enriched us for all time, that, 
in the teUing of it, I have been embarrassed by a pie- 



iv INTRODUCTION. 

thora of materials. I have described some of the things 
we wanted to see — as we saw them, — writing coft amorey 
but with such manifold strayings from the beaten track 
into by-paths and over moors, and in such homely, 
familiar phrase, that I foresee criticism from the dis- 
ciples of routine and the sedate students of chronology, 
topography and general statistics. I comfort myself, 
under the prospective infliction, with the behef which 
has not played me false in days past, — to wit : that 
what I have enjoyed writing some may like to read. I 
add to this the hope that the fresh-hearted traveler who 
dares think and feel for, and of himself, in visiting the 
Old World which is to him the New, may find in this 
record of how we made it Home to us, practical and 
valuable hints for the guidance of his wanderings. 

MARION HARLAND. 
Springfield, Mass., April, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Average Briton, i 

CHAPTER II. 
OUapodrida, . 14 

CHAPTER III. 
Spurgeon and Cummings, ....*... 29 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Two Elizabeths, 39 

CHAPTER V. 
Prince Guy, . . S^ 

CHAPTER VI. 
Shakspeare and Irving, . . . . . • . . * ^7 

CHAPTER VII. 
Kenilworth, 84 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Oxford, . 96 

CHAPTER IX. 
Sky-larks and Stoke- Pogis, m 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGB 

Our English Cousins, 121 

CHAPTER XI. 
Over the Channel 137 

CHAPTER XII. 
Versailles— Expiatory Chapel— Pere Lachaise, .... 154 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Southward Bound, 170 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Pope, King, and Forum, 183 

CHAPTER XV. 
On Christmas-Day, 196 

CHAPTER XVI. 
U Allegro and II Penseroso, 216 

CHAPTER XVII. 
With the Skeletons, 230 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
'* Paul — a Prisoner," 243 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Tasso and Tusculum, ....•,... 258 

CHAPTER XX. 
From Pompeii to Lake Avernus, . . , . . ' , • 272 

CHAPTER XXI. 
*' A Sorosis Lark," • • , . 293 



CONTENTS. Vll 

CHAPTER XXII. 

PAGE 

In Florence and Pisa, . * 308 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
"Beautiful Venice," 325 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Bologna, . 339 

CHAPTER XXV. 
**None Possibile !" • . 35' 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Lucerne and The Rigi, 366 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Personal and Practical, • 379 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Home-life in Geneva — Ferney, 392 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
Calvin — The Diodati House — Primroses, 408 

CHAPTER XXX. 
Corinne at Coppet, ....;.... 4^9 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
Chillon, .428 



LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Average Briton, 




UNDAY in London : For the first time since our 
arrival in the city we saw it under what passes in 
that latitude and language for sunshine. For ten 
days we had dwelt beneath a curtain of gray crape rest- 
ing upon the chimney-tops, leaving the pavements dry to 
dustiness. '* Gray crape " is poetical — rather — and sounds 
better than the truth, which is, that the drapery, without 
fold or shading, over-canopying us, was precisely in color 
like very dirty, unbleached muslin, a tint made fashiona- 
ble within a year or so, under the name of '* Queen Isabel- 
la's linen" {^' le linge de la Reine Isabemt''), The fixed 
cloud depressed and oppressed us singularly. It was a 
black screen set above the eyes, which we were all the 
while tempted to push up in order to see more clearly 
and farther, — a heavy hand upon brain and chest. For the 
opaqueness, the clinging rimes of the "London fog," we 
were prepared. Of the mysterious withholding for days 
and weeks of clouds threatening every minute to fall, we 
had never heard. We had bought umbrellas at Sangster's, 
as does every sensible tourist immediately after securing 



2 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

rooms at a hotel, and never stirred abroad without them ; 
but the pristine plaits had not been disturbed. Struggle 
as we might w4th the notion, we could not rid ourselves of 
the odd impression that the whole nation had gone into 
mourning. Pleasure-seeking, on the part of sojourners 
who respected conventionalities, savored of indecorum. 
We were more at our ease in the crypt of St. Paul's, and 
among the dead of Westminster Abbey, than anywhere 
else, and felt the conclave of murderers, the blood-tiecked 
faces of the severed heads, the genuine lunette and knife 
of Samson's guillotine in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of 
Horrors, to be "quite the thing in the circumstances." 

The evil, nameless spell was broken by the clangor of 
the Sabbath bells. ''The gray pavilion rose " and did not 
fall — for twenty-four hours. Strolling through St. James's 
Park in the hour preceding sunsetting, w^e pointed out to 
one another the pale blue, dappled with white, of the 
zenith, the reddening mists of the horizon. The ground 
was strewed with autumnal leaves, russet and brown. The 
subdued monotony of the two shades of decay did not 
move us to adverse criticism. The crimsons, golds, and 
purples that were robing woods wx knew of over the water, 
would be incongruous in this sober-hued land. In the 
matter of light and color, he who tarries in England in 
autumn, winter, and early spring, soon learns to be thank- 
ful for small favors. We were grateful and satisfied. We 
were in a mood to be in love with England, — ''our old 
home ; " still walked her soil as in a blessed dream, haunt- 
ed only by sharp dreads of awakening to the knowledge 
that the realization of the hopes, and longings, and ima- 
ginings of many years was made of such stuff as had been 
our cloud-pictures. We were in process of an experience 
we were ashamed to speak of until we learned how com- 
mon it was with other voyagers, whose planning and pin- 



THE AVERAGE BRITON. 3 

ing had resembled ours in kind and degree. None of us 
was willing to say how much time was given to a comical 
weighing of the identity question, somewhat after the fash- 
ion of poor Nelly on the roadside in the moonlight : — If 
this were England, who then were we ? If these pilgrims 
were ourselves — veritable and unaltered — could it be true 
that we were here ? If I do not express well what was as 
vague as tormenting, it is not because the system of spir- 
itual and mental acclimation was not a reality. 

The Palace of St. James, a range of brick and dinginess, 
stretched before us as we returned to the starting-point of 
the walk around the park, taking in the Bird-cage Walk, 
where Charles II. built his aviaries and lounged, Nelly 
Gwynne, or the Duchess of Portsmouth, at his side, a 
basket of puppies hung over his lace collar and ruffled 
cravat. It is not a palatial pile — even to eyes undried from 
the juice of Puck's "little western flower." 

" It would still be a very decent abode for the horses of 
royalty — hardly for their grooms," said Caput, critically. 
*' And it is worth looking at when one remembers how long 
bloody Mary lay there, hideous, forsaken, half dead, the 
cancerous memories of Calais and Philip's desertion con- 
suming her vitals. There lived and died the gallant boy 
who was the eldest son of James I. If he had succeeded 
to the throne his brother Charles would have worn his 
head more comfortably and longer upon his shoulders. 
That is, unless, as in the case of Henry VIII., the man- 
hood of the Prince of Wales had belied the promise of 
early youth. " 

"■ It was in St. James's Palace that Charles spent his last 
night," I interrupted. It takes a long time for the novice 
to become accustomed to the strange thrill that vibrates 
through soul and nerves when such reminiscences over- 
take him, converting the place whereon he stands into 



4 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

holy ground. I was a novice, and rushed on impetuously. 
" The rooms in which he slept and made his toilet for the 
scaffold were in the old Manor-house, a wing of the palace 
since torn down. Why can't they let things alone ? But 
the park is here, and—" glancing dubiously along the 
avenues— *' it is just possible— altogether possible— that 
some of these oldest trees may be the same that stood here 
then. On that morning, w^hen — you remember? — the 
ground being covered lightly with snow, the king walked 
with a quick step across the park to Whitehall, calling to 
the guard, ' Step on apace, my good fellows ! ' " 

Measuring with careful eye an air line between the 
palace and a building with a cupola, on the St. James 
Street side of the park, we turned our steps along this. 
The dying leaves rustled under our feet, settling sighingly 
into the path behind us. The " light snow " had muffled 
the ring of the "quick step" more like the impatient 
tread of a bridegroom than that of a doomed man shorten- 
ing the already brief space betwixt him and fate. Within 
the shadow of Whitehall, we paused. 

*'The scaffold was built just without the window of the 
banqueting-hall," we reminded each other. "As late as 
the reign of William and Mary, the king's blood was 
visible upon the window-sill. Jacobites made great capital 
of the insensibility of his granddaughter, who held her 
drawing-rooms in that very apartment. The crowd must 
have been densest about here, and spread far into the 
park. But how can we know just where the scaffold 
stood ? It was low, for the people leaped upon it after 
the execution and dipped handkerchiefs in the blood, to 
be laid away as precious relics. Those windows are rather 
high!" glancing helplessly upward. "And which is the 
banqueting-hall ? " 

"Baldeker's London " was then in press for the rescue of 



THE AVERAGE BRITON. 5 

the next season's traveller from like pits of perplexity. 
Not having it, and the "hand-books" we had provided 
ourselves with proving dumb guides in the emergency, the 
simplest and most natural road out of ignorance was to 
ask a question or two of some intelligent native-born 
Londoner. 

In this wise, then, we first made the acquaintance of the 
Average Briton, — a being who figured almost as often in 
our subsequent wanderings as did the travelling American. 
I do not undertake to say which was the more ridiculous or 
vexatious of the two, according as our purpose at the time 
of meeting them chanced to be diversion or information. 

The Average Briton of this Sabbath-day was smug 
and rotund ; in complexion, rubicund ; complacent of vis- 
age, and a little rolling in gait, being duck-legged. A 
child trotted by him upon a pair of limbs cut dutifully 
after the paternal pattern, swinging upon the paternal 
hand. Upon the other side of the central figure, arrayed 
in matronly black silk and a velvet hat with a white 
plume, walked a lady of whom Hawthorne has left us a 
portrait : 

** She has an awful ponderosity of frame, not pulpy, like 
the looser development of our few fat women, but massive 
with solid beef and streaky tallow ; so that (though strug- 
gling manfully against the idea) you inevitably think of 
her as made up of steaks and sirloins. She imposes awe 
and respect by the muchness of her personality to such a 
degree that you probably credit her with far greater moral 
and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. Without 
anything positively salient, or actually offensive, or, in- 
deed, unjustly formidable to her neighbors, she has the 
effect of a seventy-four gun ship in time of peace." I had 
ample time to remember and to verify each line of the 
picture during the parley with her husband that succeeded 



6 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

our encounter. A citizen of London-town was he. We 
were so far right in our premises. One who had attended 
''divine service" in the morning; partaken of roast mut- 
ton and a pint of half-and-half at an early dinner ; who 
would presently go home from this stretch of the legs, 
with good appetite and conscience to a '' mouthful of some- 
think 'ot with his tea," and come up to time with unflag-. 
ging powers to bread, cheese, cold meat, pickles, and ale, 
at a nine o'clock supper. Our old home teems with such. 
Heaven send them length of days and more wit ! 

Caput stepped into the path of the substantial pair ; 
lifted his hat in recognition of the lady's presence and 
apology for the interruption. 

" Excuse me, sir — " 

I groaned inwardly. Had I not drilled him in the omis- 
sion of the luckless monosyllable ever since we saw the 
Highlands of Navesink melt into the horizon ? How 
many times had I iterated and reiterated the adage ? — ''In 
England one says ' sir ' to prince, master, or servant. It 
is a confession of inferiority, or an insult." Nature and 
(American) grace were too strong for me. 

" Excuse me, sir ! But can you tell me just where the 
scaffold was erected on which Charles the First was ex- 
ecuted ? " 

The Average Briton stared bovinely. Be sure he did 
not touch his hat to me, nor echo the "sir," nor yet be- 
tray how flatteringly it fell upon his unaccustomed ear. 
Being short of stature, he stared at an angle of forty-five 
degrees to gain his interlocutor's face, unlocked his shaven 
jaws and uttered in a rumbling stomach-base the Shib- 
boleth of his tribe and nation: 

" I really carnt say ! " 

Caput fell back in good order — /. ^., raising his hat again 
to the Complete British Matron, w^hose face had not 



THE AVERAGE BRITON. 7 

changed by so much as the twitch of an eyelid while the 
colloquy was in progress. She paid no attention whatever 
to the homage offered to the sex through "the muchness 
of her personality," nor were the creases in her lord's 
double chin deepened by any inclination of his head. 

" The fellow is an underbred dolt !'" said Caput, looking 
after them as they sailed along the walk. 

" In that case it is a pity you called him * sir,' and said 
'erected' and 'executed,'" remarked I, with excruciating 
mildness. " Here comes another ! Ask him where King 
Charles was beheaded." 

No. 2 was smugger and smoother than No. i. He had 
silvery hair and mutton-leg whiskers, and a cable watch- 
chain trained over a satin waistcoat, adjuncts which im- 
parted a look of yet intenser respectability. There was a 
moral and social flavor of bank-directorships and alder- 
manic expectations about him, almost warranting the 
"sir" which slipped again from the incorrigible tongue. 

We had the same answer to a word and intonation. The 
formula must be taught to them over their crib-rails as our 
babies are drilled to lisp — "Now I lay me." Grown reck- 
less and slightly wicked, we accosted ten others in quick 
succession in every variety of phraseology, of which the 
subject was susceptible, but always to the same effect. 
Where stood the scaffold of Charles the First, Charles 
Stuart, Charles the Martyr, Charles, father of the Merry 
Monarch, the grandparent of Mary of Orange and Good 
Queen Anne ? Could any man of British mould designate 
to us the terminus of that quick step over the snowy park 
on the morning of the 30th of January, 1649, the next stage 
to that " which, though turbulent and troublesome, would 
be a very short one, yet would carry him a great way — 
even from earth to Heaven ? " 

Eight intelligent Londoners said, " I really carnt say ! " 



8 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

more or less drawlingly. Two answered bluntly, *'Dawnt 
know ! " over their shoulders, without staying or breaking 
their saunter. Finally, we espied a youth sitting under a 
tree — one of those from which the melting snow might 
have dropped upon the prisoner's head — why not the 
thrifty oak he had pointed out to Bishop Juxon in nearing 
Whitehall, as **the tree planted by my brother Henry?" 
The youth was neatly dressed, comely of countenance, and 
he held an open book, his eyes riveted upon the open page. 

** That looks promising ! " ejaculated Caput. There was 
genuine respect in his address : 

" I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but can you 
inform me, etc., etc.?" 

The student raised his head, and looked at us with lack- 
lustre or abstracted eyes. 

''Hey?" 

Caput repeated the query distinctly and with emphasis. 

''Chawles the First?" 

*' Yes ! " less patiently. '"^ The king whose head was cut 
off by order of Cromwell's parliament, under the windows 
of Whitehall, in 1649?" 

''Never heard of him!" rejoined the countryman of 
Hume, Macaulay, and Froude, resuming his studies. 

Caput recoiled as from an electric eel. " I wouldn't 
have believed it, had any one else heard and repeated it to 
me ! " gasped he, when out of ear-shot. " Do you suppose 
there is a hod-carrier in Boston who does not know the 
history of Faneuil Hall ?" 

" Hundreds ! Hod-carriers are usually of foreign birth. '* 

" Or a school-boy in America who never heard of Ar- 
nold's treason and Andre's fate ? Or, for that matter, who 
cannot, when twelve years old, tell the whole story of King 
Charles's death, even to the ' Remember ! ' as he laid his 
head upon the block ? " 



THE AVERAGE BRITON. 9 

I had a new difficulty to present. 

''While you have been catechizing the enlightened Brit- 
ish public, I have been thinking — and I am afraid Ave are 
sentimentalizing in the wrong place. I have harrowing 
doubts as to this being the real Whitehall. The palace was 
burned in the time of William and Mary — or a portion of 
it — and but partially rebuilt by Inigo Jones. There is al- 
together too much of this to be the genuine article. And 
it is startlingly modem ! " 

It was a spacious building, and did not look as if it had 
a story. The exterior was stuccoed and smoke-blackened, 
but the London air would have dyed it to such complexion 
in ten years. A belvidere or cupola finished it above. 
Beneath this, on the ground-floor, separating the wings, 
was an archway leading into St. James Street. The citi- 
zens whom we had questioned had, with the exception of 
the student, emerged from or disappeared in this passage 
from park to thoroughfare. We saw now a sentinel, in red 
coat and helmet, turn in his beat up and down under the 
arch. 

" Is this Old Whitehall ?" we asked. 

He shook his head without halting. 

"Where is it?" 

He pointed to a building on the opposite side of the 
street. It was two stories — lofty ones — high above the 
basement. Twenty-one windows shone in the handsome 
front. We traversed the arched passage, planted ourselves 
upon the sidewalk and gazed, bewildered, at the one-and- 
twenty windows. Through which of them had passed the 
kingly form we seemed to have seen for ourselves, so 
familiar were the oval face and pointed beard, the great 
eyes darkened all his life long with prophecy of doom ? 
Through which had been borne the outraged corpse, the 
bloody drippings staining the sill ? Upon what spot of 



lO LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the pavement trodden by the throng of Sabbath idlers had 
fallen the purple rain from a monarch's heart ? For sweet 
pity's sake, had none marked the place by so much as a 
cross in the flagging ? All else around us bore the stamp 
of a later age. Were the apparently venerable walls 
pointed out by the sentinel the banqueting-hall where the 
granddaughter held her court, or was this Inigo Jones's (the 
Inevitable) restoration ? 

** One might imagine regicide so common a crime in 
England as not to be considered worthy of special note ! " 
we grumbled, a strong sense of injury upon our foiled 
souls. 

Just then down the street strode a policeman, and, at 
sight of our puzzled faces, hesitated with an inquiring 
look. I cheerfully offer my testimony here to the civil- 
ity, intelligence, and general benevolence of the London 
police. We met them always when w^e needed their ser- 
vices, and as invariably found them ready and able to do 
all we required of them, sometimes insisting upon going a 
block out of their way to show us our route. Perfunctory 
politeness ? It may have been, but it was so much better 
than none at all, or surly familiarity ! The man to whom 
we now addressed ourselves was tall and brawmy, with 
features that lighted pleasantly in the hearing of our tale 
of defeat. 

*'My father used to tell me," he said, respectful still, 
but dropping into the easy conversational strain an excep- 
tionally obliging New York '' Bobby " might use in like 
circumstances, ''that the king was led out through that 
window," indicating, not one of the triple row in the ban-^ 
queting-room, but a smaller in a lower and older wing, 
''and executed in front of the main hall. Some say the 
banqueting-chamber was not burned with the rest of the 
palace. Others that it was. My father was inclined to 



THE AVERAGE BRITON. II 

believe that this is the original building. I have heard 
him tell the tale over and over until you might have 
thought he had been there himself. The Park ran clear 
up to Old Whitehall then, you see — where this street is now. 
The crowd covered all this ground where we are standing, 
the soldiers being nearest the scaffold. That stood, as 
nearly as I can make out, about there ! " tapping the side- 
walk with his stick. ^' A few feet to the right or the left 
don't make much difference, you know, sir. It does seem 
queer, and a little sad, there's not so much as a stone let 
into the wall, or a bit of an inscription. But those were 
rough times, you know." 

"We are very much obliged to you !" Caput said heart- 
ily, holding out his hand, the palm significantly inverted. 

The man shook his head. " Not at all, sir ! Against 
the rules of the force ! I have done nothing worth talk- 
ing about. If my father were living, now! But people 
nowadays care less and less for old stories." 

He touched his cap in moving away. 

''The truest gentleman we have met this afternoon!" 
pronounced Caput. ''Now, we will go back into the 
park, out of this bustle, and think it all over ! " 

This had become already a pet phrase and a pet prac- 
tice with us. The amateur dramatization, sometimes par- 
tially spoken, for the most part silent, was our way of 
appropriating and assimilating as our very own what we 
saw and learned. It was a family trick, understood 
among ourselves. Quiet, freedom from platitudinal que- 
ries and comment, and comparative solitude, were the 
favorable conditions for fullest enjoyment of it. 

The student was so absorbed in his book — I hope it 
was history ! — as not to see us when we passed. The sun- 
light fell aslant upon the dark-red walls of the old palace, 
lying low, long, and gloomy, across the end of the walk. 



12 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

A Stiff, dismal place — yet Elizabeth, in all her glor)', had 
been moderately contented with it. Within a state bed- 
chamber, yet to be seen, the equivocal circumstances — 
or the coincidences interpreted as equivocal by the faction 
hostile to the crown, — attending the birth of the son of 
James II. and Mary of Modena laid the first stone of the 
mass of distrust that in the end crushed the hopes of 
**The Pretender." The ''first gentleman of Europe" 
opened his baby eyes in this vulgar world under the roof 
of the house his father had already begun to consider 
unfit for a king's dwelling, and to meditate taxation of 
his American colonies for funds with which to build a 
greater. Queen Victoria was married in the Chapel of 
St. James, adjoining the palace. Upon the mantel of the 
venerable Presence-chamber are the initials of Henry 
VIII. and Anne Boleyn, intertwisted in a loving tangle. 
They should have been fashioned in wax instead of the 
sterner substance that had hardly left the carver's hand 
for the place of honor in the royal drawing-room before 
the vane of Henry's affections veered from Anne to Jane. 
It is said that he congratulated himself and the new queen 
upon the involutions of the cipher that might be read 
almost as plainly "H. J." as ''H. A." So, there it stands 
— the sad satire upon wedded love that mocked the eyes 
of discreet Jane, the one consort who died a natural death 
while in possession of his very temporary devotion, — and 
the two Katherines who succeeded her. 

By contrast with sombre St. James's, Buckingham Palace 
is a meretricious mushroom, scarcely deserving a passing 
glance. The air was bland for early November, and we 
sat upon a bench under a tree that let slow, faded leaves 
down upon our heads while Ave "thought it all over," 
until the gathering glooms in the deep archway, flanked 
by sentry-boxes, shaped themselves into a procession of 



THE AVERAGE BRITON. 1 3 

the ''born and died" in the low-browed chambers. To re- 
cite their names would be to give an abstract of the his- 
tory of the mightiest realm of the earth for four centuries. 
And, set apart by supreme sorrow from his fellows, 
ever foremost in our dream-pictures, walked he, who 
''made trim," by his own command, "for his second 
marriage-day," hastened through the snowy avenues of 
the park to find a pillow for the Lord's anointed upon 
the headsman's block before the windows of the banquet- 
ing-room of Whitehall. 




CHAPTER 11. 

Olla Podrida. 

N one week we had been twice to Westminster 
Abbey, once to the Tower ; had seen St. Paul's, 
Hyde Park, Tussaud's Wax Works, Mr. Spur- 
gcon, the New Houses of Parliament, Billingsgate, the 
Monument, Hyde Park, the British Museum, and more 
palaces than I can or care to remember. In all this time 
we had not a ray of sunshine, but neither had a drop of 
rain fallen. We began to leave umbrellas at home, and 
to be less susceptible in spirits to the glooming of the 
dusky canopy upborne by the chimneys. That one clear 
— for London — Sunday had made the curtain so nearly 
translucent as to assure us that behind the clouds the sun 
was still shining, and we took heart of grace for sight- 
seeing. 

But in the course of seven smoky-days we became 
slightly surfeited with *' lions." Weary, to employ a culi- 
nary figure, of heavy roast and boiled, we longed for the 
variety of spicy entrees — savory "little dishes" not to be 
found on the carte^ and which were not served to the con- 
ventional sight-seer. One morning, when the children had 
gone to ''the Zoo" with papa and The Invaluable, Prima 
— the sharer with me of the aforesaid whim — and myself 
left the hotel at ten o'clock to carry into effect a carefully- 
prepared programme. We had made a list of places 



OLLA PODRIDA. 1 5 

where ''everybody" did not go ; which " Qolden Guides" 
and ''Weeks in London" omitted entirely, or slurred over 
with slighting mention ; which local ciceroni knew not of, 
and couriers disdained, but each of which had for us pe- 
culiar association and attraction. 

Four-wheelers were respectable for unattended women, 
and cheaper than hansoms. But there was a tincture of 
adventure in making our tour in one of the latter, not tak- 
ing into account the advantages of being able to see all 
in front of us, and the less " stuffy " odor of the interior. 
Sallying forth, with a pricking, yet delicious sense of 
questionableness that recalled our school-day pranks, we 
sought the nearest cab-stand and selected a clean-looking 
vehicle, drawn by a strong horse with promise of speed 
in body and legs. The driver was an elderly man in 
decent garb. The entire establishment seemed safe and 
reputable so far as the nature of our enterprise could 
partake of these characteristics. When seated, we gave 
an order with inward glee, but perfect gravity of de- 
meanor. 

" Newgate Prison ! " 

We had judged shrewdly respecting the qualities of our 
horse. It was exhilarating, even in the dull, dead atmos- 
phere we could not breathe freely while on foot, to be 
whirled through the unknown streets, past delightless 
parks and dolefuller mansions in the West End, in and 
out of disjointed lanes that ran madly up to one turn and 
down to another, as if seeking a way out of the mesh of 
"squares" and "roads" and "rows," — perceiving satisfi- 
edly, as we did all the time, that we were leaving aristo- 
cratic and even respectable purlieus behind as speedily as 
if our desires, and not the invisible "cabby," shaped our 
flight. We brought up with a jerk. Cabs — in the guid- 
ance of old or young men — have one manner of stopping ; 



l6 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

as if the '* concern," driver, horse and hansom, had meant 
to go on for ever, like Tennyson's brook, and reversed the 
design suddenly upon reaching the address given them, 
perhaps, an hour ago. We jerked up now, in a narrow 
street shut in on both sides by black walls. The trap 
above our heads opened. 

** Newgate on the right, mem! Old Bailey on the 
left ! " 

The little door shut with a snap. We leaned forward 
for a sight of the prison on the right. Contemptible in 
dimensions by comparison with the spacious edifice of our 
imaginations, it was in darksomeness and relentless ex- 
pression, a stony melancholy that left hope out of the 
question, just what it should — and must — have been. The 
pall enwrapping the city was thickest just here, resting, 
like wide, evil wings upon the clustered roofs we could 
see over the high wall. The air was lifeless ; the street 
strangely quiet. Besides ourselves we did not see a hu- 
man being within the abhorrent precincts. The prison- 
front, facing the^smaller '' Old Bailey," is three hundred 
feet long. In architecture it is English, — bald and ugly 
as brick, mortar, and iron can make it. In three minutes 
we loathed the place. 

''You can go on!" I called to the pilot, pushing up 
the flap in the roof. " Driv^e to the church in which 
the condemned prisoners used to hear their last ser- 
mon." 

'*Yes, mem!" Now we detected a rich, full-bodied 
Scotch brogue in his speech. ''Pairhaps ye wouldna' 
moind knawing that by that gett — where ye'U see the bairs 
— the puir wretches went on the verra same mornin'. Wha 
passed by that gett never cam' back." 

It was a dour-looking passage to a disgraceful death ; a 
small door crossed by iron bars, and fastened with a rusty 



OLLA PODRIDA. 1/ 

chain. It made us sick to think who had dragged their 
feet across the dirt-crusted threshold, and when. 

The cab jerked up again in half a minute, although we 
had rushed off at a smart trot that engaged to land us at 
least a mile off. 

" St. Sephulchre's, mem ! " 

I have alluded to the difficulty of determining the age of 
London buildings from the outward appearance. A year 
in the sooty moisture that bathes them for seven or eight 
months out of twelve, destroys all fairness of coloring, leav- 
ing them without other beauty than such as depends upon 
symmetrical proportions, graceful outlines and carving. 
The humidity eats into the pores of the stone as cosmetics 
impair the texture of a woman's skin. But St. Sepulchre 
has a right to be blase. It antedated the Great Fire of 1666, 
the noble porch escaping ruin from the flames as by a 
miracle. It is black, like everything else in the neighbor- 
hood, and, to our apprehension, not comely beyond the 
portico. The interior is as cheerless as the outside, cold 
and musty. Throughout, the church has the air of a bat- 
tered crone with the, sins of a fast youth upon her con- 
science. There are vaults beneath the floor, lettered me- 
morial-stones in the aisle, tarnished brasses on the walls. 
Clammy sweats break out upon floor, walls, pews and altar 
in damp weather, and this day of our visit had begun to be 
damp. It was an unwholesome place even to be buried in. 
What we wanted to see was a flat stone on the southern 
side of the choir, reached in bright weather by such daring 
sunbeams as could make their way through a window, the 
glass of which was both painted and dirty. A brownish- 
gray stone, rough-grained, and so much defaced that im- 
agination comes to the help of the eyes that strive to read 
it : '* Captain John Smith — So7fietime Governour of Virginia and 
Admirall of New-England.'' He died in 1631, aged fifty- 



1 8 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

two. The Three Turks' Heads are still discernible upon the 
escutcheon above the inscription. The rhyming epitaph 
begins with — 

*' Here lyes One conquer* that Hath conquer'^ Kings." 

We knew that much and failed to decipher the rest. 

Family traditions, tenderly transmitted through eight 
generations, touching the unwritten life of the famous sol- 
dier of fortune, of the brother who was his heir-at-law, and 
bequeathed the coat-of-arms to American descendants, were 
our nursery tales. For him whose love of sea and wild- 
wood was a passion captivity nor courts could tame, his 
burial-place is a sorry one, although esteemed honorable. 
I think he would have chosen rather an unknown grave 
upon the border of the Chickahominy or James, the stars, 
that had guided him through swamp and desert, for tapers, 
instead of organ-thrill and incense, the song of mocking- 
birds and scent of pine woods. The more one knows and 
thinks and sees of St. Sepulchre's the less tolerant is he of 
it as a spot of sepulture for this gallant and true knight. 
They interred him there because it was his parish church. 
But they — the English — are not backward in removing other 
people's bones when it suits their pride or convenience to 
do so. In the square tower, lately restored, hangs the bell 
that has tolled for two hundred years when the condemned 
passed out of the little iron gate we had just seen. They 
used to hang them at Tyburn, afterward in the street be- 
fore the prison. Now, executions take place privately 
within the Newgate walls. In the brave old times, when 
refinement of torture was appreciated more highly than now 
as a means of grace and a Christian art, the criminal had 
the privilege of hearing his own funeral sermon, — which 
was rarely, we may infer, a panegyric, — seated upon his 



OLLA PODRIDA. 19 

coffin in the broad aisle of St. Sepulchre's. There was a 
plat of flowers then in the tiny yard where the grass cannot 
sprout now for the coal-dust, and as the poor creature took 
his place — the service done — upon the coffin in the cart 
that was to take him to the gallows, a child was put for- 
ward to present him with a bouquet of blossoms grown 
under the droppings of the sanctuary. What manner of 
herbs could they have been ? Rue, rosemary, life-everlast- 
ing? Yet they may have had their message to the dim 
eyes that looked down upon them — for the quailing human 
heart — of the Father's love for the lowest and vilest of His 
created things. 

"Temple Bar ! " was our next order. 

Before we reached it our driver checked his horse of his 
own accord, got down from his perch at the back, and pre- 
sented his weather-beaten face at my side. 

*' I've thocht " — respectfully, and with unction learned in 
the ''kirk" — ''that it might eenterest the leddies to know 
that this is the square where mony hundreds of men, 
wimmen, and, one may say, eenfants^ were burrned alive for 
the sake of the Faith." 

And in saying it, he lifted his hat quite from his head 
in reverence, we were touched to note, was not meant for 
us,, but as a tribute to those of whom the world was not 
worthy. 

" Smithfield ! " we cried in a breath. " Oh ! let us get 
out ! " 

It is a hollow square, a small, railed-in garden and foun- 
tain in the middle ; around these extends on three sides an 
immense market, the pride of modern London, a structure 
of much pretension, with four towers and a roof, like that 
of a conservatory, of glass and iron, supported by iron pil- 
lars. A very Babel of buying and selling, of hawkers' and 
carters' yells, at that early hour of the day. The stake 



20 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

was near the fine old church of St. Bartholomew, which 
faces the open space. Excepting the ancient temple, 
founded in 1102, there is no vestige of the Smithfield 
(Smoot/i-field) where Wallace was hanged, drawn and quar- 
tered in 1305 ; where the ''Gentle Mortimer" of a royal 
paramour was beheaded in 1330, and, in the reign of 
Mary I., the ''Good Catholic," three hundred of her sub- 
jects, John Rogers and Bradford among them, were burned 
with as little scruple as the white-aproned butcher in the 
market-stall near by slices off a prime steak for a customer. 
The church has been several times restored, but the Nor- 
man tower bears the date 1628. It, too, felt the Great Fire, 
and the heat and smoke of crueller flames, in the midst of 
which One like unto the Son of Man walked with His 
children. Against the walls was built the stage for the 
accommodation of the Lord Mayor of London, the Duke 
of Norfolk and the Earl of Bedford, that they might, at 
their ease, behold Anne Askew burn. They were in too 
prudent dread of the explosion of the powder-bag tied 
about her waist to sit near enough to hear her say to the 
sheriff's offer of pardon if she would recant — " I came not 
hither to deny my Lord ! " 

St. Bartholomew the Great stands yet in Smithfield. 
Above it bow the heavens that opened to receive the souls 
born into immortality through the travail of that bloody 
reign. Forty years ago, they were digging in the groimd 
in front of the church to lay pavements, or gas-pipes, or 
water-mains, or some other nineteenth-century device, 
and the picks struck into a mass of charred human bones. 

'■^Unknoivn!'' Stephen Gardiner and his helpers had 
a brisk run of business between St. Andrew's Day, 1554, 
and November 17, 1558. There was no time to gather 
up the fragments. Ah, well ! God and His angels knew 
where was buried the precious seed of the Church. 



OLLA PODRIDA. 21 

How the cockles of our canny Scot's heart warmed to- 
ward us when he perceived that he and we were of one 
mind anent Smithfield ! that we took in, without cavil, 
the breadth and depth of his words — ''The Faith!" 
During that busy four years tender women, girls and 
babes in age proved, with strong men, what it meant to 
''earnestly contend for" it. 

In a gush of confidence induced by the kinship of sen- 
timent upon this point, we told our friend what we wanted 
to see in the city, that day, and why, and found him won- 
derfully versed in other matters besides martyrology. He 
named a dozen places of interest not upon our schedule, 
and volunteered to call out the names of noted localities 
through the loop-hole overhead, as we passed them. This 
arrangement insured the success of our escapade, for his 
judicious selection of routes, so as to waste no time in bar- 
ren neighborhoods, was only surpassed by the quality of 
the pellets of information dropped into our ears. 

St. John's gate was, in aspect, the most venerable relic 
we saw in London. They told us in the office at the gate- 
way that it and the Priory — now destroyed — were built 
in 1 1 1 1 ; but recollecting that the Pope's confirmation of 
the first constitution of the Order of the Knights of St. 
John of Jerusalem bore date of 1113, we nursed some un- 
spoken doubts. The prior who finished the building in 
1504 modestly left his family coat-of-arms upon the wall of 
the small entrance-room, now used as an office. This black 
and bruised arch marks what was the rallying-point of 
British chivalry and piety during three crusades. Out of 
this gate the Hospitallers drew forth in mingled martial 
and ecclesiastical array — white gown with the red cross 
on shoulder, over hauberk and greaves, — at each depart- 
ure for the Holy Land. Godfrey de Bouillon was an 
influential member and patron of the Order. Henry 



22 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

VIII. scattered the brethren and pocketed their revenues. 
His daughter Mary reinstated them in their home and 
privileges. Her sister Elizabeth would none of them, 
and that was an end of the controversy, for she lived 
long enough to enforce her decree. 

Cave's ''Gentleman's Magazine" was published here 
when gentlemen ceased to ride, booted, spurred, and illit- 
erate, upon the crusades against the Saracen. Johnson, a 
slovenly provincial usher, having failed as translator and 
schoolmaster to make a living, applied for, and received 
from this periodical literary employment — the first paying 
engagement of his life. For more than a dozen years he 
was a contributor to the Magazine, and the office above 
the gate was his favorite lounging-place. As a proof of 
this they show a chair, ungainly and unclean enough to 
have been used by him throughout the period of his con- 
tributorship. 

East of St. John's Gate we passed a disused intramural 
cemetery, begloomed on all sides by rows of dingy houses. 
The rain of "blacks" incessantly descending upon the 
metropolis collects here in unstirred, sable sheets. Such 
a pall enfolds the graves of Isaac Watts and Daniel Defoe, 
whose "Diary of the Great Plague" is a work of more 
dramatic power than his Robinson Crusoe. A stone's 
throw apart from hymnster and romancist, lies a greater 
than either — the prince of dreamers, John Bunyan. 

Temple Bar is— or was, for it has been pulled down 
since we were there — an arch of Portland stone, and is 
attributed, I hope, erroneously, to Christopher Wren. 
Without this information I should have said that it was 
a wooden structure, badly hacked, gnawed, and besmirch- 
ed by time, with dirty plaster statues of the two Charleses 
niched upon one side, and, upon the other, corresponding 
figures of James I. and Elizabeth. It was much lower 



OLLA PODRIDA. 23 

than we had supposed, and than it is represented in pic- 
tures, and just wide enough to allow two coaches to pass 
abreast without collision. The roaring tide overflowing 
the Strand and Fleet Street appeared to squeeze through 
with difficulty. Above the gate was a row of one-story 
offices — mere boxes — such as are occupied in our country 
by newspaper-venders. Within the memory of living men 
the top of the gate was a thick-set hedge of spikes, reck- 
oned, not very many years back, as one of the bulwarks 
of English liberties. Up to the middle of the eighteenth 
century, law-abiding cockneys, on their peregrinations to 
and from the city, were strengthened in loyalty and vener- 
ation for established customs, by the spectacle of rotting 
and desiccated heads of traitors exposed here. They were 
tardy in the abolition of object-teaching in Christian 
England. There were solid oaken gates with real hinges 
and bars at Temple Gate. When the sovereign paid a 
visit to the city she was reminded of some agreeable pas- 
sages between one of her predecessors and the London 
lords of trade, by finding these closed. Her pursuivant 
blew a trumpet ; there was an exchange of question and 
reply ; the oaken leaves swung back ; the Lord Mayor 
presented his sword to our gracious and sovereign lady, 
the. queen, who returned it to him with an affable smile, 
and the royal coach was suffered to pass under the Bar. 
More object-teaching ! 

From Temple Gate to Temple Gardens was a natural 
transition. These famous grounds formerly sloped down 
to the Thames, and were an airy, spacious promenade. 
Now, one smiles in reading that Suffolk found it a "more 
convenient" place for private converse than the " Temple 
Hall." A talk between four gentlemen' of the rank of 
Plantagenet, Suffolk, Somerset and Warwick, in the pretty 
plat of grass and flowers, fenced in by iron rails, would 



24 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

have eavesdroppers by the score, and the incident of 
plucking the roses be overlooked by the gossips of fifty 
tenement-houses. But the area, sadly circumscribed by 
the encroachments of business, is a sightly bit of green, 
intersected by gravel walks, and in the season enlivened 
by the flaming geraniums that not even London *' blacks " 
can put out of countenance. We really saw rose-trees 
there in flower, the following August. 

In one particular, and one only, the knowledge and zeal 
of our Scotchman were at fault in the course of our Bohe- 
mian expedition. I have said that Baedeker's excellent 
'* Hand-book for London" was in the printer's hands just 
w^hen we needed it most. Therefore we searched vainly 
in St. Paul's Churchyard for Dr. Johnson's Coffee-house, 
where Boswell hung upon his lumbering periods, as bees 
upon honeysuckle ; for the site of the Queen's Arms Tav- 
ern, also a resort of the literati in the time of the great Lex- 
icographer. We were mortified at our ill-success, chiefly 
because we ascribed it to the very lame and imperfect de- 
scriptions of these places which were all we could offer the 
Average Britons of whom we made inquiry. We were inr 
no such uncertainty as to the Chapter Coffee-house in 
Paternoster Row ; Mrs. Gaskell had been there before us 
and left so broad a '' blaze " we could hardly miss seeing it. 

*' Half-way up (the Row), on the left hand side, is the 
Chapter Coffee-house. It is two hundred years old, or so. 

The ceilings of the small rooms were low, and 

had heavy beams running across them; the walls were 
wainscoted breast-high; the staircase was shallow, broad, 
and dark, taking up much space in the centre of the house. 
This, then, was the Chapter Coffee-house, which, a cen- 
tury ago, was the resort of all the booksellers and publish- 
ers; and where the literary hacks, the critics, and even 
the wits, used to go in search of ideas, or employment. 



OLLA PODRIDA. • 2$ 

This was the place about which Chatterton wrote, in those 
delusive letters he sent to his mother at Bristol, while he 
was starving in London. ' I am quite familiar at the 
Chapter Coffee-house, and know all the geniuses there.' 
Here he heard of chances of employment ; here his letters 
were to be left." 

Here the Bronte sisters, visiting London upon business 
connected with ''Jane Eyre" and " Wuthering Heights," 
stayed for two days, resisting the invitation of their pub- 
lisher to come to his house. 

Charlotte's biographer had gone on to draw for us with 
graphic pen a scene of later date : 

"The high, narrow windows looked into the gloomy 
Row. The sisters, clinging together on the most remote 
window-seat, could see nothing of motion or of change 
in the grim, dark houses opposite, so near and close 
although the whole breadth of the Row was between. The 
mighty roar of London was round them, like the sound 
of an unseen ocean, yet every foot-fall on the pavement 
below might be heard distinctly in that unfrequented 
street." 

When we made known our purpose to the guide, who, 
by this time, had taken upon him the character of protec- 
tor, likewise, he was puzzled but obedient. He got down 
at the mouth of the crooked Row and begged permission 
to do our errand. 

*' The horse is pairfectly quiet, and there's quite a dreezle 
comin' on." 

This was true. The fog that had seemed dry so long, was 
falling. The uneven, round stones were very wet. But 
why not drive down the street until we found the house 
we were looking for ? 

He rubbed his grizzled, sandy hair into a mop of per- 
plexity. 



26 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

*' The way is but strait at the best, as ye may pairceive, 
leddies, and it wad be unco' nosty to meet a cab, or, may- 
hap, a four-wheeler in some pairts." 

We primed him with minute directions and let him de- 
part upon the voyage of discovery, while we leaned back 
under the projecting hood of the carriage, sheltered by it 
and the queer, wooden folding-doors above our knees, 
from the ''dreezle," and speculated why "Paternoster" 
Row should be near to and in a line with "Amen" and 
"Ave Maria" corners. What august processional had 
passed that way, and pausing at given stations to say an 
"Ave," a "Paternoster," a united "Amen," left behind it 
names that would be repeated as long and ignorantly as 
the Cross of '''■Notre Chere Eeine" and "Zc? JKoute du RoV 
are murdered into cockney English ? That led to the tell- 
ing of a dispute Caput had had one day with a cabman, 
who, by the way, had jumped from his box on the road to 
Hyde Park corner to say: "No, sir, we're not at H'Aps- 
ley 'Ouse yet, sir ! But I fancied it might h'interest the 
lady to know that the pavement we are a-drivin' over at 
this h'identical minute, sir, h'is composed h'entirely of 
wood ! " 

"We have hundreds of miles of it in America, and wish 
you had it all ! " retorted Caput, amused, but impatient. 
"Goon!" 

Having seen Apsley and Stafford Houses, we bade the 
fellow take us to a certain number on Oxford Street. He 
declared there was no such street in the city, and jumped 
down from his seat to confirm his assertion out of the 
mouths of three or four other "cabbies" at a hackstand. 
A brisk altercation ensued, ended by Caput's exhibition 
of an open guide-book and pointing to the name. 

" Ho ! hit's Hugsfoot Street you mean ! " cried the dis- 
gusted cockney. 



OLLA PODRIDA. 27 

As I finished the anecdote our Scot returned, crest- 
fallen. He did not say we had sent him on a fool's er- 
rand, but we began to suspect it ourselves when we under- 
took the quest in person. We were wrapped in water- 
proofs and did not mind the fine, soaking mist, except as 
it made the strip of flagging next the shops slippery, as 
with coal-oil. Pa;ternoster Row retains its bookish char- 
acter. Every second shop was a publisher's, printer's, or 
stationer's. Everybody was civil. N. B. — Civility is a 
part of a salesman's trade in England. But everybody 
stared blankly at our questions relative to the Chapter 
Coffee-house, although the very name fixed it in this lo- 
cality. One and all said, first or last — *' I really carn't 
say!" and several observed politely that *'it was an un- 
common nasty day." One added, *'But h'indeed, at this 
season, we may look for nasty weather." 

One word about this pet adjective of the noble Briton 
of both sexes. It is quite another thing from the Amer- 
ican word, spelled but not pronounced in the same way, and 
which, with us, seldom passes the lips of well-bred people. 
An English lady once told me that a hotel she had patron- 
ized was ''very clean — neat as wax, in fact, and hand- 
somely furnished, but a very- very nasty house ! " 

She meant, it presently transpired, that the fare was 
scant in quantity, and the landlord surly. Whatever is 
disagreeable, mean, unsatisfactory, from any cause what- 
soever, is ''nasty." When they would intensify the ex- 
pression they say "beastly," and fold over the leaf upon 
the list of expletives. 

We did not find our coffee-house, nor anybody who 
looked or spoke as if he ever heard of the burly Lichfield 
bear or his parasite, of Chatterton or Horace Walpole, 
much less of the Rowley MSS. or the sisters Bronte ! 
Nor were we solaced for the disappointment by driving 



28 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

three miles through the mist to see The Tyburn Tree, to 
behold an upright slab, like a mile-stone, set upon the 
inner edge of the sidewalk at the western verge of Hyde 
Park. A very disconsolate slab, slinking against the 
fence as if ashamed of itself in so genteel a neighborhood, 
and of the notorious name cut into its face. 




CHAPTER III. 

Spurgeon and Cuinmings, 

!R. SPURGEON and his Tabernacle are ''down" 
in guide-books among the lions of the metrop- 
olis. But, in engaging a carriage to take us to 
the Tabernacle on Sabbath morning, we had to clarify 
the perceptions of our very decent coachman by inform- 
ing him that it was hard by the ''Elephant and Castle." 
Nothing stimulates the wit of the average Briton like the 
mention of an inn or ale-house, unless it be the gleam of 
the shilling he is to spend therein. 

In anticipation of a crowd, Caput had provided himself 
with tickets for our party of three. These are given to 
any respectable traveller who will apply to the agent of 
the "concern," in Paternoster Row. To avoid the press 
of entrance we allowed ourselves an hour for reaching the 
church. The Corinthian portico was already packed with 
non-holders of tickets, although it lacked half an hour of 
the time for service. There were ushers at a gate at the 
left of the principal entrance, who motioned us to pass. 
The way lay by a locked box fastened to a post, labelled 
"For the Lay College," or words to that effect. In 
consideration of the gratuity of the tickets, and the mani- 
fest convenience of the same, that stranger is indeed a 
churl, ungrateful, or obtuse to the laws of quid pro quo, 
who does not drop a coin into the slit, and feel, after the 



30 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

free-will offering, that he has a better right to his seat. 
A second set of ushers received us in the side vestibule 
and directed us to go upstairs. The gallery seats are the 
choice places, and we obeyed with alacrity. A third de- 
tachment met us at the top of the steps, looked at and 
retained our tickets, and stood us in line with fifty other 
expectants against the inner wall, until he could *'h'ar- 
range matters," Our turn came in about five minutes, 
and we were agreeably surprised at being installed in the 
front roWj with a clear view of stage and lower pews. In 
five minutes more an elderly lady in a black silk dress 
trimmed profusely wHth guipure lace, a purple velvet hat 
with a great deal of Chantilly about it, and a white feather 
atop of all, touched my shoulder from behind, showing 
me a face like a Magenta hollyhock, but sensible and 
kind. 

*■'' Might I inquire if you got your tickets from Mr. 
Merry weather ? " 

I looked at Caput. 

*'No, madam!" he replied promptly. "I procured 
them from ," giving the Paternoster Row address. 

*' Possible ? But you are strangers ? " 

He bowed assent. 

''^And Americans ? '* 

Another bow. 

** Then all I 'ave to say is, that it is extror'nary ! most ex- 
tror'nary ! I told Mr. Merr)rweather to give three tickets, 
with my compliments, to an American party I heard of — 
one gentleman and a couple of ladies — and I was in hopes 
they were providentially near my pew." 

She leaned forward, after a minute, to subjoin — *'Of 
course, you are welcome, all the same ! " 

"That is one comfort!" whispered Prima, as the pew- 
owner settled back rustlingly into her corner. '' In Amer- 



SPURGEON AND CUMMINGS. 3 1 

ica we should consider her * very-very' impertinent Do 
circumstances and people alter cases ? " 

Ten minutes more and the galleries were packed by the 
skilled ushers, and the body of the lower floor was three- 
quarters full of pew-holders. We scanned them carefully 
and formed an opinion of the social and intellectual status 
of the Tabernacle congregation we saw no reason to re- 
verse at our second and longer visit to London, two years 
afterward, when our opportunities of making a correct esti- 
mate of pastor and people were better than on this occa- 
sion. Caput summed it up. 

'*I dare affirm that eight out of ten of them misplace 
their Hs " 

*'And say, 'sir!'" interpolated Prima, gravely. 

Yet they looked comfortable in spirit, and, as to body, 
were decidedly and tawdrily overdressed — the foible of those 
whose best clothes are too good for every-day wear, and 
who frequent few places where they can be so well dis- 
played and seen as at church. Somebody assured me 
once, that white feathers were worn in Great Britain out 
of compliment to the Prince of Wales, whose three white 
plumes banded together are conspicuous in all public 
decorations. If this be true, the prospective monarch 
may felicitate himself upon the devotion of the Wives and 
Daughters of England. I have never seen one-half so 
many sported elsewhere, and they have all seasons for 
their own. 

The last remaining space in our slip was taken up by a 
pair who arrived somewhat late. The wife was a pretty 
dumpling of a woman, resplendent in a bronze-colored silk 
dress, garnie with Valenciennes, a seal-skin jacket, and a 
white hat trebly complimentary to H. R. H. She and her 
dapper husband squeezed past those already seated, oblig- 
ing us to rise to escape trampled toes, wedged themselves 



32 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

into the far end of the pew, and a dialogue began in loud 
whispers. 

" I say it's a shame ! " 

*' If you complain they may say we should a' come 
h'earlier." 

*'I don't care ! I will 'ave my say! Mr. Smith!" This 
aloud, beckoning an usher : ''I say, Mr. Smith ! You've put 
one too many h' in our pew. Its h'abominably crowded ! ' 

The slip was very long. Besides the malcontents, there 
were five of us, who looked at each other, then at the em- 
barrassed usher. The gentleman next the aisle arose. 

** If you can provide me with another seat I will give 
the lady more room/' he said to the man of business. 

With a word of smiling apology to his companion — a 
sweet-faced woman we supposed was his wife — he followed 
the guide, and, as the reward of gallantry stood against the 
wall back of us until the sermon was half done. We did 
not need to be told what was his nationality. The victori- 
ous heroine of the skirmish did not say or look — **I am 
sorry ! " or ''Thanks !" only, to her husband, — ^^ Now I can 
breathe ! " 

She was civilly attentive to me, who chanced to sit near- 
est her, handing me a hymn-book and offering her fan as 
the house grew warm. She evidently had no thought that 
she had been rude or inhospitable to the stranger within 
the gates of her Tabernacle. 

The great front doors were opened, and in less time than 
I can write of it the immense audience-chamber, capable 
of containing 6,500 persons, was filled to overflowing. The 
rush and buzz were a subdued tumult. Nobody made 
more noise than was needful in the work of obtaining seats 
in the most favorable positions left for the multitude who 
were not regular worshippers there, nor ticket-holders. 
But I should have considered one of ApoUos's sermons 



SPURGEON AND CUMMINGS. 33 

dearly-bought by such long waiting and the race that 
ended it. The ground-swell of excitement had not entirely 
subsided when the ^' ting ! ting ! " of a little bell was heard. 
A door opened at the back of the deep platform already 
edged with rows of privileged men and women, who had 
come in by this way, and Mr. Spurgeon walked to the 
front, where were his chair and table. 

I have yet to see the person whose feeling at the first 
sight of the great Baptist preacher was not one of over- 
whelming disappointment. His legs are short and tremble 
under the heavy trunk. His forehead is low, with a bush 
of black hair above it, the brows beetle over small, twink- 
ling eyes, the nose is thick, the mouth large, with a pendu- 
lous lower jaw. '^ Here is an animal ! " you say to yourself. 
'' Of the earth, earthy. Of the commonalty, common ! " 

He moved slowly and painfully, and while preaching, 
praying and reading, rested his gouty knee upon the seat 
of a chair and stood upon one leg. His hand, stumpy and 
ill-formed, although small, grasped the chair-back for 
further support. If I remember aright, there was no in- 
vocation or other preliminary service before he gave out a 
hymn. His voice is a clear monotone, marvellously sus- 
tained. The inflections are slight and few, but exceedingly 
effective. The ease of elocution that sent every syllable to 
the farthest corner of the vast building was inimitable and 
cannot be described. 

*'We will sing" — he began as naturally as in a prayer- 
meeting of twenty persons — '"We will al/ sing, with the 
heart and with the voice, with the spirit, and with under- 
standing, the th hymn : 

" Let us all, with cheerful mood 
Praise the Lord, for He is good ! " 

The pronunciation of "mood" rhymed precisely with 

2* 



34 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

" good," and he said *' Lard," instead of '' Lord." But the 
words had in them the ring of a silver trumpet. 

The precentor stood directly in front of the preacher, 
facing the audience and just within the railing of the 
stage. The instant the reading of the hymn was over, he 
raised the tune, the congregation rising. The Niagara of 
song made me fairly dizzy for a minute. Everybody sang. 
After a few lines, it was impossible to refrain from sing- 
ing. One was caught up and swept on by the cataract. He 
might not know the air. He might have neither ear nor 
voice for music. He was kept in time and tune by the 
strong current of sound. There was no organ or other 
musical instrument, nor was the voice of the precentor 
especially powerful. It was as if we were guided by one 
overmastering mind and spirit constraining the least emo- 
tional to be "conjubilant in song" with the thousands 
upon thousands of his fellows. Congregational psalmody, 
such as this, without previous rehearsal or training, is 
phenomenal. 

A prayer followed, as remarkable in its way as the sing- 
ing. Comprehensive, devout, simple, it was the pleading 
of man in the felt presence of his Maker ; — the key-note — 
*' Nevertheless, I will talk with Thee!" Next to Mr. 
Spurgeon's earnestness his best gift is his command of 
good, nervous English, — fluency which is never verbose- 
ness. Knowing exactly what he means to say, he says 
it — fully and roundly — and lets it alone thereafter. He is 
neither scholarly, nor eloquent, in any other sense than in 
these. He read a chapter, giving an exposition of each 
verse in terse, familiar phrase. There was another hymn, 
and he announced his text : 

*' Rather rejoice because your 7iames are written in Heaven ! " 

I should hardly name humility as a characteristic of 
prayer or sermon ; yet, for one whose boldness of speech 



SPURGEON AND CUMMINGS. 35 

often approximates dogmatism, he is singularly free from 
self-assertion. His sermon was more like a lecture-room 
talk than a discourse prepared for, and delivered to a 
mixed multitude. His quotations from Holy Writ were 
abundant and apt, evincing a retentive memory and ready 
wit. One-third of the sermon was in the very words of 
Scripture. His habitual employment of Bible phrases 
has lent to his own composition a quaint savor. He makes 
lavish use of ^'thee" and "thou," jumbling these inele- 
gantly with ''you" in the same sentence. 

For example : — He described a man who had been use- 
ful and approved as a church-member : (always addressing 
his own people) — ''The Master has allowed you to work 
for many days in His vineyard, and paid thee good wages, 
even given thee souls for thy hire." 

In what shape reverses came to the prosperous laborer 
we were not told, but that he did see others outstrip him 
in usefulness and honors : 

"You are bidden by the Master to take a lower — maybe 
the lowest seat. Ah, then, my friend, thou hast the dimtpsT' 

I heard him say in another sermon : "If my Lord were 
to offer a prize for a joyful Christian I am afraid there are 
not many of you who would dare try for it. And if you 
did, I fear me much you would not draw even a third 
prize." 

Occasionally he is coarse in trope and expression. I 
hesitate to record a sentence that shocked me to disgust as 
being not only in atrocious taste and an unfortunate figure 
of speech, but, to my apprehension, irreverent : 

" If we are not filled, it is because we do not hang upon 
and suck at those blessed breasts of God's promises as we 
might and should do." 

His illustrations are like his diction — homely. There 
was not a new grand thought, nor a beautiful passage, 



36 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

rhetorically considered, in any discourse we ever heard 
from him ; not a trace of such fervid imagination as draws 
men, sometimes against their will, to hear Gospel truth in 
Talmage's Tabernacle, or of Beecher's magnificent genius. 
We have, in America, scores of men who are little known 
outside of their own town, or State, who preach the Word 
as simply and devoutly ; w^ho are, impartially considered, 
in speech more weighty, in learning incomparably supe- 
rior to the renow^ned London Nonconformist. Yet w^e sat 
— between six and seven thousand of us — and listened to 
him for nearly an hour, without restlessness or straying at- 
tention. Yes ! and w^ent again and again, to discover, if 
possible, as the boys say of the juggler — '' how he did it." 

In giving out the notices for the week, Mr. Spurgeon 
thanked the regular attendants of the church for having 
complied with the request he had made on the preceding 
Sabbath morning, and ''stopped away at night," thus 
leaving more room for strangers. "I hope still more of 
you will stop at home this evening," he concluded in a 
tone of jolly fellowship the people appeared to compre- 
hend and like. He was clearly thoroughly at one with 
his flock. 

At night we also ''stopped aw^ay," but not at home. 
After much misdirection and searching, we found the alley 
— it was nothing better — leading to Dr. Cummings's church 
in Crown Court, Long Acre. It was small, very small in 
our sight w^hile the remembered roominess of the Taber- 
nacle lingered w4th us, — plain as a Primitive Methodist 
Chapel in the country; badly lighted, and the high, 
straight pews were not half filled. The author of "Voices 
of the Dead" and "Lectures upon the Apocalypse" is a 
gray-haired man a little above medium height. His 
shoulders w^ere bowed slightly — the bend of the student, 
not of infirmity ; his features were clear-cut and spirituelle. 



SPURGEON AND CUMMINGS. 37 

He preached that night in faith and hope that were pa- 
thetic to us who had read his prophecies — or his inter- 
pretation of Divine prophecy — as long ago as 1850, and 
recalled the fact that the time set for the fulfilment of 
some of these had passed. 

His text was Rev. i. 3: ^''Blessed is he that readeth, and 
they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things 
that are written therein— for the time is at hand ! " 

He believed it. One read it in every word and ges- 
ture ; in the rapt look of the eyes so long strained with 
watching for the nearer promise — the dayspring — of His 
coming ; in the calm assurance of mien and tone, the dig- 
nity of a seer, whom Heaven was joined with earth to 
authenticate. He spoke without visible notes ; his only 
gesture a slight lifting of both hands, with a fluttering, 
outward movement. We listened vainly for some token 
in his spoken composition of the epigrammatic, often 
antithetical style, that gives nerve and point to his pub- 
lished writings. The interesting, albeit desultory talk 
was, he informed us, tlie first of a series of sermons upon 
the Apocalypse he designed to deliver in that place from 
Sabbath to Sabbath. He had been diligently engaged 
of late in recasting the horoscope of the world. That 
was not the way he put it. But he did say that he had 
reviewed the calculations upon which his published " Lec- 
tures " were based, and would make known the result of 
his labors in the projected series. 

He preferred, it was said, the obscure corner in which 
he preached to any other location, and had refused the 
offer of a lady of rank to build him a better church, in a 
better neighborhood. I suppose he thought it would out- 
last him — and into the millennial age. 

I read, but yesterday, in an English paper, that he had 
retired from pulpit duties, in confirmed ill-health, and 



38 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

that after his long life of toil he is very poor. Some of 
his wealthy friends propose to pension him. And we re- 
member so well when his ''Voices of the Night" — *'The 
Day" — ''The Dead" were read by more thousands and 
tens of thousands than now flock to hear Spurgeon ; when 
the "Lectures upon the Apocalypse " were a bugle-call, 
turning the eyes of the Christian world to the so long ray- 
less East. We recall, too, the title of another of his books, 
with the vision of the bent figure and eyes grown dim 
with waiting for the glory to be revealed, — and another 
text from his beloved Revelation : 

" These are they that have come out of Great Tribulation^ 
and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood 
of the Lamb."" 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Two Elizabeths, 




F the English autumn be sad, and the English 
spring be sour, the smiling beauty of the Eng- 
lish summer should expel the memory of gloom 
and acerbity from the mind of the tourist who is not af- 
flicted with bronchitis. In England they make the ch 
very hard, and pronounce the / in the second syllable as 
in kite. They ought to know all about bronchitis, for it 
lurks in every whiff of east wind, and most of the vanes 
have rusted upon their pivots in their steadfast pointing to 
that quarter. 

The east wind is not necessarily raw. It was bracing, 
and the sky blue as that of Italy, when we took a Fourth 
of July drive of nine hours through the fairest portion 
of the Isle of Wight. The Tally-Ho was a gorgeous pleas- 
ure-coach, all red and yellow. The coachman and guard 
were in blue coats and brass buttons, red waistcoats, and 
snowy leather breeches, fitting like the skin ; high top- 
boots and cockaded hats. We had four good horses, the 
best seats upon the top of the coach, a hamper of lun- 
cheon, and as many rugs and shawls as we would have 
taken on a winter voyage across the Atlantic. There 
were opaline belts of light upon the sea, such as we had 
seen from Naples and Sorrento, passing into pearl and 
faintest blue where the sky met and mingled with the 



40 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

water. Hundreds of sails skimmed the waves like so 
many white gulls. Here and there a steamer left a dusky- 
trail upon the air. Three w^ere stationary about a dark 
object near the shore. It looked like a projecting pile 
the rising tide might cover. The Eurydice^ a school-ship 
of the Royal Navy, had foundered there in a gale six 
weeks and more agone, carrying upwards of three hun- 
dred souls down with her. Day by day these government 
transports were toiling to raise her and recover the bodies 
of the boys. A wxek after we left the island they suc- 
ceeded in dragging up the water-logged hulk. Only 
eighteen corpses were found. The sea had washed off 
and hidden the rest. 

England is a garden in June, July, and August. The 
Isle of Wight is a fairy parterre, set with such wealth of 
verdure and bloom as never disappoints nor palls upon 
the sight. The roads are perfect in stability and smooth- 
ness, and whether they lie along the edge of the cliffs, or 
among fertile plains besprinkled with villages and farm- 
buildings, with an occasional manor-house or venerable 
ruin, are everywhere fringed by such hedges as flourish 
nowhere else so bravely as in the British Isles. The haw- 
thorn was out of flower, but blackberries whose blossoms 
were pink instead of white, trailing briony, sweet-brier, 
and, daintiest and most luxuriant of all, wild convolvulus, 
hung with tiny cups of pale rose-color — healed our re- 
grets that we were too late to see and smell the *'May" 
in its best-loved home. 

We lunched at Blackgang Chine, spreading our cloth 
upon the heather a short distance from the brow" of the 
cliff, the sea rolling so far below us that the surf was a 
whisper and the strollers upon the beach were pigmies. 
The breadth — the apparent boundlessness of the view 
were enhanced by the crystalline purity of the atmos- 



THE TWO ELIZABETHS. 4 1 

phere. In standing upon the precipice, our backs to the 
shore, looking seaward beyond the purple "Needles" 
marking the extremest point of the sunken reef, we had 
an eerie sense of being suspended between sky and ocean ; 
— a lightness of body and freedom of spirit, a contempt 
for the laws of gravitation, and for the Tally-Ho as a 
means of locomotion, that were, we decided after com- 
paring notes among ourselves, the next best thing to 
being sea-fowl. 

The principal objects of interest for the day were Car- 
isbrooke Castle and Arreton. Next to the Heidelberg 
Schloss, Carisbrooke takes rank, in our recollection of 
ruins many and castles uncountable, for beauty of situa- 
tion and for careful preservation of original character 
without injury to picturesqueness. The moat is cushioned 
with daisied turf, but we crossed it by a stone bridge of a 
single span. Over the gateway is carved the Woodville 
coat-of-arms, supported on each side by the "White Rose " 
of York. The arch is recessed between two fine, round 
towers. The massive doors, cross-barred with iron, still 
hang upon their hinges. Passing these, we were in a 
grassy court-yard of considerable extent. On our left was 
the shell of the suite of rooms occupied by Charles I. dur- 
ing his imprisonment here, from November 13, 1647, until 
the latter part of the next year. Ivy clings and creeps 
through the empty window-frames, and tapestries walls de- 
nuded of the "thick hangings and wainscoting" ordered 
for the royal captive. The floors of the upper story have 
fallen and the lower is carpeted with grass. Tufts of a 
pretty pink flower were springing in all the crevices. 
Ferns grew rank and tall along the inside of the enclosed 
space. High up in the wall is the outline of a small win- 
dow, "blocked up in after alterations," according to the 
record. Through this the king endeavored to escape on 



42 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the night of March 20, 1648. Horses were ready in the 
neighborhood of the Castle, and a vessel awaited the king 
upon the shore. A brave royalist came close beneath the 
window and gave the signal. 

** Then" — in the words of this man, the only eye-witness 
of the scene — '' His Majesty put himself forward, but, too 
late, found himself mistaken." 

Charles had declared, when the size of the aperture was 
under discussion, ''Where my head can pass, my body can 
follow." 

" He, sticking fast between his breast and shoulders and 
not able to get backward or forward. Whilst he stuck I 
heard him groan, but could not come to help him, which, 
you may imagine, was no small affliction to me. So soon 
as he was in again — to let me see (as I had to my grief heard) 
the design was broken — he set a candle in the window. 
If this unfortunate impediment had not happened, his 
Majesty had certainly then made a good escape." 

The Stuarts were a burden to the land, as a family ; but 
we wished the window had been a few inches broader, and 
exile, not the block, the end of fight 'twixt king and parlia- 
ment, as we walked up and down the tilt-yard converted 
into a promenade and bowling-green for the prisoner while 
Colonel Hammond was governor of the Castle. Here 
Charles paced two hours each day, the wide sea and the 
free ships below him ; in plain sight the cove where the 
little shallop had lain, at anchor, the night of the attempted 
rescue. 

''He was not at all dejected in his spirits," we read; 
"but carried himself with the same majesty he had used 
to do. His hair was all gray, which, making all others very 
sad, made it thought that he had sorrow in his counte- 
nance which appeared only by that shadow." 

In further evidence of his unbroken spirit in this earliest 



THE TWO ELIZABETHS. 43 

imprisonment, we have the motto ^^ Dmn spiro^ Spero^^^ writ- 
ten by himself in a book he was fond of reading. With- 
out divining it, he was getting his breath between two 
tempests. That in these months all that was truly kingly 
and good within him was nourished into healthy growth 
we gather, furthermore, in reading that ^' The Sacred 
Scriptures he most delighted in ; read often in Sand's 
Paraphrase of King David's Psalms and Herbert's Divine 
Poems." Also, that " Spenser's Faerie Queen was the 
alleviation of his spirits after serious studies." 

The Bowling Green is little changed in grade and verdure 
since the semi-daily promenade of the captive monarch 
streaked it with narrow paths, and since his orphaned son 
and daughter played bowls together upon the turf two 
summers afterward. The sward is velvet of thickest pile. 
There is an English saying that '' it takes a century to 
make a lawn." This has had more than two in which to 
grow and green. 

We were glad that another party who were with us in the 
grounds were anxious to see an ancient donkey tread the 
wheel which draws up a bucket from the well, ''144 feet 
deep, with 37 feet of water " in a building at the side of the 
Castle. While they tarried to applaud ''Jacob's" feat, we 
had a quiet quarter of an hour in the upper chamber, 
where, as a roughly-painted board tells us, " The Prin- 
cess Elizabeth died." 

Who (in America) has not read the narrative, penned by 
the thirteen-year-old child, " What the King said to me 29'"''* 
of January last^ being the last time I had the happiness to see 
him " ? The heart breaks with the mere reading of the 
title and the fancy of the trembling fingers that wrote it 
out. 

Her father had said to her, '* But, sweetheart, thou wilt 
forget what I tell thee !" "Then, shedding abundance of 



44 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

tears, I told him that I would write down all he said to 
me." 

We knew, almost to a word, the naive recital which was 
the fulfilment of the pledge. We could not have forgot- 
ten at Carisbrooke that her father had given her a Bible, 
saying : '' It had been his great comfort and constant com- 
panion through all his sorrows, and he hoped it w^ould be 
hers." She had been a prisoner in the Castle less than a 
wxek when she was caught in a sudden shower while play- 
ing with her little brother, the Duke of Gloucester, on the 
Bowling Green. The wetting ''caused her to take cold, 
and the next day she complained of headache and feverish 
distemper." It was a poor bed-chamber for a king's 
daughter (with one window, a mere slit in the wall, and 
one door), in the which she lay for a fortnight, " her disease 
growing upon her," until ''after many rare ejaculatory 
expressions, abundantly demonstrating her unparalleled 
piety, to the eternal honor of her own memory and the 
astonishment of those who waited upon her, she took leave 
of the world on Sunday, the 8th of September, 1650." 

That was the way the chaplain and the physician told 
the story — such a sorrowful little tale when one strips away 
the sounding polysyllables and cuts short the windings of 
the sentences ! 

The warden's wife was, we know, one of " those who 
waited upon her." Hireling hands ministered to her 
through her "distemper." In the scanty retinue that at- 
tended her to Carisbrooke was one " Judith Briott, her 
gentlewoman." We liked to think she must have loved 
her gentle little mistress. It is possible her tending was 
as affectionate as the care she might have had, had the 
mother, to whom the father had sent his love by the 
daughter's hand, been with her instead of in France, toy- 
ing (some say) with a new lover. Yet the child-heart must 



THE TWO ELIZABETHS. 45 

have yearned for parents, brothers and sisters. On that 
Sunday morning, an attendant entering with a bowl of 
bread-and-milk, discovered that the princess had died 
alone, her cheek pillowed upon the Bible — her father's 
legacy. 

That small chamber was a sacred spot where we could 
not but speak low and step softly. It is utterly disman- 
tled. When draped and furnished it may not have been 
comfortless. It could never have been luxurious. A 
branch of ivy had thrust itself in at the window through 
which her dying eyes looked their last upon the sky. 
Caput reached up silently and broke off a spray. As I 
write, it climbs up my window-frame, a thrifty vine, that 
has taken kindly to voyaging and transplanting. To me 
it is a more valuable memento than the beautiful photo- 
graph of the monument erected to Princess Elizabeth's 
memory in the Church of St. Thomas, whither ''her body 
was brought (in a borrowed coach) attended with her few 
late servants." 

Yet the monument is a noble tribute from royalty to the 
daughter of a royal line. The young girl lies asleep, one 
hand fallen to her side, the other laid lightly upon her 
breast, her cheek turned to rest upon the open Bible. The 
face is sweet and womanly ; the expression peacefully 
happy. *' A token of respect for her virtues^ and sympathy for 
her misfortunes. By Victoria R., 1856." So reads the in- 
scription. 

Imagination leaped a wide chasm of time and station in 
passing from the state prison-chamber of Carisbrooke to 
the thatched cottage of The Dairyman's Daughter ; from 
the marble sculptured by a queen's command, to the head- 
stone reared by one charitable admirer of the humble 
piety of Elizabeth Walbridge. To reach the grave we had 
to pass through the parish church of Arreton. It is like 



46 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

a hundred other parish churches scattered among the by- 
ways of England. The draught from the interior met us 
when the door grated upon the hinges, cold, damp, and 
ill-smelling, a smell that left an earthy taste in the mouth. 
Beneath the stone flooring the noble dead are packed 
economically as to room. The sexton, who may have been 
a trifle younger than the building, spoke a dialect we 
could hardly translate. The church was his pride, and he 
was sorely grieved when we would have pushed right on- 
ward to the burying-ground. 

"Ye mun look at 'e brawsses ! " he pleaded so tremu- 
lously that we halted to note one, on which was the figure 
of a man in armor, his feet upon a lion couchant. 

*' Here is ye buried under this Grave 
Harry Haweis, His soul God save. 
Long tyme steward of the YIe of Wyght. 
Have m'cy on hym, God ful of myght. 

The date is 1430. 

Another "brass" upon a stone pillar bears six verses 
setting forth the worthy deeds of one William Serle : 

** Thus did this man, a Batchelor, 
Of years full fifty-nyne. 
And doing good to many a one, 
Soe did he spend his tyme." 

" An' ye woant see 'e rest ? " quavered the old sexton at 
our next movement. " 'E be foine brawsses ! Quawlity all 
of um — 'e be ! " 

Seeing our obduracy, he hobbled to the side-door and 
unlocked it, amid many groans from himself and the rusty 
wards. The July light and air were welcome after the 
damp twilight within. In death at least, it would seem to be 
better with the poor than the "quality," if sun and breeze 



THE TWO ELIZABETHS. 47 

are boons. The churchyard is small and ridged closely 
with graves. The old man led the way between and over 
these to the last home of the Dairyman's Daughter. We 
gathered about it, looked reverently upon the low swell 
of turf. There is a metrical epitaph, sixteen lines in 
length, presumably the composition of the lady at whose 
expense the stone was raised. It begins : 

*' Stranger ! if e'er by chance or feeling led, 
Upon this hallowed turf thy footsteps tread, 
Turn from the contemplation of the sod, 
And think on her whose spirit rests with God." 

The rest is after the same order, a mechanical jingle in 
pious measure. It offends one who has not been educated 
to appreciate the value of post-mortem patronage bestowed 
by the lofty upon the lowly. It was enough for us to 
know that the worn body of Legh Richmond's *' Eliza- 
beth " lay there peacefully sleeping away the ages. 

We had picked up in a Ventnor bookshop a shabby 
little copy of Richmond's "Annals of the Poor," printed 
in 1828. It contained a sketch of Mr, "Richmond's life 
by his son-in-law. The Dairyman's Daughter, The Negro 
Servant, and The Young Cottager, the scene of all these 
narratives being in the Isle of Wight. We reread them 
with the pensive pleasure one feels in unbinding a pac- 
quet of letters, spotted and yellowed by time, but which 
hands beloved once pressed, and yielding still the faint 
fragrance of the rose-leaves we laid away with them 
when the pages were white and fresh. We, who drew 
delight with instruction from Sunday-School libraries more 
than thirty years back, knew Elizabeth, the ''Betsey" of 
father and mother, better than we did our next-door 
neighbors. Prima and Secunda, allured by my enthusi- 
asm to read the book, declared that her letters to her 



48 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

spiritual adviser ''were prosy and priggish," but that 
the hold of the story upon my heart was not all the effect 
of early association was abundantly proved by their re- 
spectful mention of her humble piety and triumphant 
death. 

By her side lies the sister at whose funeral Legh Rich- 
mond first met his modest heroine. In the same family 
group sleep the Dairyman and his wife. "The mother 
died not long after the daughter," says Mr. Richmond, 
*' and I have good reason to believe that God was merci- 
ful to her and took her to Himself. The good old Dairy- 
man died in 1816, aged 84. His end was eminently 
Christian." 

Elizabeth died May 30, 1801, at the age of thirty-one. 

*' Pardon ! " said a foreign gentleman, one of the party, 
who, seeing Caput uncover his head at the grave, had 
done the same. ''But will you have the goodness to tell 
me what it is we have come here to see ? " 

" The grave of a very good woman," w^as the reply. 

Legh Richmond tells us little more. Her love for her 
Saviour, like the broken alabaster-box of ointment in the 
hand of another woman of far different life, is the sweet 
savor that has floated down to us through all these years. 

I stooped to picked some bearded grasses from the 
mound. The sexton bent creakingly to aid me, chatter- 
ing and grinning. He wore a blue frock over his cordu- 
roy trousers : his hands and clothes w^ere stained with 
clay ; his sunken cheeks looked like old parchment. 

" 'A wisht 'a 'ad flowers to gi' 'e, leddy ! " he said. " 'A 
dit troy for one wheele to keep um 'ere. But 'a moight 
plant um ivery day, and 'ee ud be all goane 'afore tum- 
morrer. He ! he ! he ! 'A— manny leddies cooms 'ere for 
summat fro' e' grave. 'A hurried 'er brother over yander ! " 
chucking a pebble to show where— * "a dit! 'E larst of 



THE TWO ELIZABETHS. 49 

'e fomily. 'Ees all goane ! And 'am still aloive and loike 
to burry a manny more ! He ! he ! " 

Our homeward route lay by the Dairyman's cottage, a 
long mile from the church. When the coffin of Elizabeth, 
borne by neighbors' hands, was followed by the mourners, 
also on foot, funeral hymns were sung, '' at occasional in- 
tervals of about five minutes." As we bowled along the 
smooth road. Prima, sitting behind me, read aloud from 
the shabby little volume a description of the surrounding 
scene, that might, for accuracy of detail, have been writ- 
ten that day : 

''A rich and fruitful valley lay immediately beneath. 
It was adorned with corn-fields and pastures, through 
which a small river winded in a variety of directions, and 
many herds grazed upon its banks. A fine range of op- 
posite hills, covered with grazing flocks, terminated with 
a bold sweep into the ocean, whose blue waves appeared 
at a distance beyond. Several villages, churches and 
hamlets were scattered in the valley. The noble man- 
sions of the rich and the lowly cottages of the poor added 
their respective features to the landscape. The air was 
mild, and the declining sun occasioned a beautiful inter- 
change of light and shade upon the sides of the hills." 

The annalist adds, — ''In the midst of this scen,e the 
chief sound that arrested attention was the bell tolling for 
the funeral of the ' Dairyman's Daughter.' " 

"A picture by Claude!" commented Caput as the 
reader paused. 

"A draught of old wine that has made the voyage to 
India and back ! " said Dux, our blue-eyed college-boy. 

These were the hills that had echoed the funeral psalm ; 

these the cottages in whose doors stood those ''whose 

countenances proclaimed their regard for the departed 

young woman." Red brick "cottages," the little gardens 

3 



so LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

between them and the road crowded with larkspurs, 
pinks, roses, lavender, and southernwood. They were 
generally built in solid rows under one roof, the yards 
separated by palings. There were no basements, the 
paved floors being laid directly upon the ground. Two 
rooms upon this floor, and one above in a steep-roofed 
attic, was the prevailing plan of the tenements. The 
doors were open, and we could observe, at a passing 
glance, that some were clean and bright, others squalid, 
within. All, mean and neat, had flowers in the windows. 
The Dairyman's cottage stands detached from other 
houses with what the neighbors would term *'a goodish 
bit of ground " about it. To the original dwelling that 
Legh Richmond saw has been joined a two-story wing, 
also of brick. Beside it the cottage with its thatched roof 
is a very humble affair. The lane, '' quite overshaded with 
trees and high hedges," and ''the suitable gloom of such 
an approach to the house of mourning," are gone, with 
*' the great elm-trees which stood near the house." The 
rustling of these, — as he rode by them to see Elizabeth 
die, — the imagination of the unconscious poet and true 
child of Nature ''indulged itself in thinking were plain- 
tive sighs of sorrow." 

But we saw the upper room with its sloping ceiling, and 
the window-seat in which " her sister-in-law sat weeping 
with a child in her lap," while Elizabeth lay dying upon 
the bed drawn into the middle of the floor to give her air. 

The glory of the sunsetting was over sea and land, 
painting the sails rose-pink ; purpling the lofty downs and 
mellowing into delicious vagueness the skyey distances — 
the pathways into the world beyond this island-gem — when 
we drove into Ventnor. The grounds of the Royal Hotel 
are high and spacious, with turfy banks rolling from the 
cliff-brow down to the road, divided by walks laid in 



THE TWO ELIZABETHS. $1 

snowy shells gathered from the shore. From a tall flag- 
staff set on the crown of the hill streamed out, proud and 
straight in the strong sea-breeze — the Stars and Stripes ! 
We did not cheer it, except in spirit, but the gentlemen 
'waved their hats and the ladies kissed their hands to the 
grand old standard, and all responded "Amen!" to the 
deep voice that said, " God bless it, forever ! " And with 
the quick heart-bound that sent smiles to the lips and 
moisture to the eyes, with longings for the Land always 
and everywhere dearest to us, came kindlier thoughts than 
we were wont to indulge of the " Old Home," which, in 
the clearer light of a broadening Christian civilization, 
can, with us, rejoice in the anniversary of a Nation's Birth- 
day. 



CHAPTER V. 
Prince Guy. 



I-H^IEAMINGTON is in, and of itself, the pleasantest 
1^^ and stupidest town in England. It is a good 
ajasaaili place in which to sleep and eat and leave the 
children when the older members of the party desire to 
make all-day excursions. It is pretty, quiet, healthy, with 
clean, broad *' parades" and shaded parks wherein per- 
ambulators are safe from runaway horses and reckless 
driving. There are countless shops for the sale of expen- 
sive fancy articles, notably china and embroidery ; more 
lodging-houses than private dwellings and shops put to- 
gether. There is a chabybeate spring — fabled to have 
tasted properly, /. ^., chemically, ''nasty," once upon a time 
— enclosed in a pump-room. Hence '' Leamington Spa," 
one of the names of the town. And through the Jephson 
Gardens (supposed to be the Enchanted Ground where- 
upon Tennyson dreamed out his '' Lotos-eaters ") flows the 
** high-complectioned Leam," the sleepiest river that ever 
pretended to go through the motions of running at all. 
Hawthorne defines the ''complexion" to be a "greenish, 
goose-puddly hue," but, "disagreeable neither to taste nor 
smell." We used to saunter in the gardens after dinner 
on fine evenings, to promote quiet digestion and drowsi- 
ness, and can recommend the prescription. There are 
churches in Leamington, " high " and " low," or, as the two 



PRINCE GUY. 53 

factions prefer to call themselves, '' Anglican " and '' Evan- 
gelical; " Nonconformist meeting-houses — Congregational, 
Wesleyan and Baptist ; there are two good circulating 
libraries, and there is a tradition to the effect that living 
in hotels and lodgings here was formerly cheap. One 
fares tolerably there now — and pays for it. 

We made Leamington our headquarters for six weeks, 
Warwickshire being a very mine of historic show-places, 
and the sleepy Spa easy of access from London, Oxford, 
Birmingham, and dozens of other cities we must see, while 
at varying distances of one, five, and ten miles lie Warwick 
Castle, Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon, Charlecote, the 
home of Sir Thomas Lucy (Justice Shallow), Stoneleigh 
Abbey — one of the finest country-seats in Great Britain — 
and Coventry. 

The age of Warwick Castle is a mooted point. " Caesar's 
Tower," ruder in construction than the remainder of the 
stupendous pile, is said to be eight hundred years old. It 
looks likely to last eight hundred more. The outer gate 
is less imposing than the entrance to some barn-yards I 
have seen. A double-leaved door, neither clean nor mas- 
sive, was unbolted at our ring by a young girl, who told 
us that the " H'Earl was sick," therefore, visitors were not 
admitted ''h'arfter 'arf parst ten." Once in the grounds, 
''they might stay so long h'as they were dispoged." 

It is impossible to caricature the dialect of the lower 
classes of the Mother Country. Even substantial trades- 
men, retired merchants and their families who are living — 
and traveling — upon their money are, by turns, prodigal 
and niggardly in the use of the unfortunate aspirate that 
falls naturally into place with us ; while servants who have 
lived for years in the "best families" appear to pride 
themselves upon the liberties they take with their /I's^ 
mouthing the mutilated words with pomp that is irresistibly 



54 LOITERIXGS IX PLEASAXT PATHS. 

comic. We delighted to lay traps for our guides and 
coachmen, and the yeomen we encountered in walks and 
drives, by asking information on the subject of Abbeys, 
Inns, Earls, Horses, Halls, and Ages. In every instance they 
came gallantly up to our expectations, often transcended 
our most daring hopes. But we seldom met with a more 
satisfactor)- specimen in this line than the antique servitor 
that kept the lodge of Warwick Castle. She wore a black 
gown, short-waisted and short-skirted, a large cape of the 
same stuff, and what Dickens had taught us to call a 
*' mortified"' black bonnet of an exaggerated type. The 
cap-frill within flapped about a face that reminded us of 
Miss Cushman's Meg Merrilies. Entering the lodge hastily, 
after the young woman who had admitted us had begun 
cataloguing the curiosities collected there, she put her 
aside with a sweep of her bony arm and an angry, guttural 
'•AchI" and began the solemnly circumstantial relation 
she must have rehearsed thousands of times. We beheld 
" H'earl Guy's " breast-plate, his sword and battle-axe, the 
" 'om " of a dun cow slain by him, and divers other bits of 
old iron, scraps of potter}-, etc. But the cJuf d'auvre of 
the custodian was the oration above Sir Guy's porridge- 
pot, a monstrous iron vessel set in the centre .of the square 
chamber. Standing over it, a long poker poised in her 
hand, she enumerated with glowing gusto the ingredients 
of the punch brewed in the big kettle "when the present 
H'earl came h'of h'age," glaring at us from the double 
pent-house of frill and bonnet. I forget the exact propor- 
tions, but they were somewhat in this order : 

** H'eighteen gallons o' rum. Fifteen gallons o' brandy " 
— tremendous stress upon each liquor — ''One 'undred 
pounds o' loaf sugar. H'eleven 'undred lemmings, h'and 
fifty gallons h'of 'ot water I This h'identikle pot was filled 
/land h'emptied, three times that day! H'l myself saw h'it ! " 



PRINCE GUY. 55 

Her greedy gloating upon the minutest elements of the 
potent compound was elfish and almost terrible. It was 
like— 

" Eye of newt and toe of frog, 
Wool of bat and tongue of dog," — 

the harsh gutturals and suspended iron bar heightening 
the haggish resemblance. The pot, she proceeded to relate, 
was " six 'undred years h'old," and bringing down the poker 
upon and around the edge, evolving slow" gratings and 
rumblings that crucified our least sensitive nerves, '^h'is 
this h'our without 'ole h'or crack h'as h'i can h'answer for 
h'and testify ! " 

The entire exhibition was essentially dramatic and effec- 
tively ridiculous. She accepted our gratuity with the 
same high tragedy air and posed herself above the chal- 
dron for an entering party of visitors. 

We sauntered up to the castle along a cur\'ing drive be- 
tween a steep bank overrun with lush ivy and a wall 
covered with creepers, and overhung by fine old trees. 
Birds sang in the branches and hopped across the road, 
the green shade bathed our eyes refreshingly after the 
glare of the flint-strewn highway outside of the gates. It 
was a forest dingle, rather than the short avenue to the 
grandest ancient castle in Three Kingdoms. A broad 
expanse of turf stretching before the front of the man- 
sion is lost as far as the eye can reach in avenues and 
plantations of trees. Among these are cedars of Lebanon, 
brought by crusading Earls from the Holy Land, still vig- 
orously supplying by new growth the waste of centuries. 
Masses of brilliant flowers relieved the verdure of the level 
sward, fountains leaped and tinkled in sunny glades, and 
cut the shadow of leafy vistas with the flash of silver blades. 
In the principal conservatory stands the celebrated War- 



56 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

wick Vase, brought hither from Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. 
Ladders were reared against the barbican wall of great 
height and thickness, close by Guy's Tower (erected in 
1394). Workmen mounted upon these w^ere scraping 
mosses and dirt from the interstices of the stones and filling 
them with new cement. No pains nor expense is spared 
to preserve the magnificent fortress from the ravages of 
time and climate. From the foundation of the Castle 
until now, the family of Warwick, in some of its ramifica- 
tions — or usurpations — has been in occupation of the de- 
mesne and is still represented in the direct line of suc- 
cession by the present owner. The noble race has battled 
more successfully with revolution and decay in behalf of 
house and ancestral home than have most members of the 
British Peerage whose lineage is of equal antiquity and 
note. 

Opposite the door by which we entered the Great Hall, 
was a figure of a man on horseback, rider and steed as 
large as life. The complete suit of armor of the one and 
the caparisons of the other, were presented by Queen 
Elizabeth to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, her hand- 
some master-of-horse. From this moment until we quitted 
the house, we were scarcely, for a moment, out of sight of 
relics of the parvenu favorite. 

It is difficult to appreciate that real people, made of 
flesh, blood, and sensibilities akin to those of the mass of 
humankind, live out their daily lives, act out their true 
characters, indulge in ''tiffs" and ''makings up," and 
have "a good time generally," in these great houses to 
which the public are so freely admitted. Neither lives 
nor homes seem to be their individual and distinctive 
property. They must be tempted, at times, to doubts of 
the proprietorship of their own thoughts and enjoy the 
right of private opinion by stealth. 



PRINCE GUY. 57 

One thing helped me to picture a social company of 
friends grouped comfortably, even cozily, in this mighty 
chamber, the pointed rafters of which met so far above us 
that the armorial bearings carved between them upon the 
ceiling were indistinct to near-sighted eyes ; where the 
walls were covered with suits of armor, paintings by re- 
nowned masters, and treasures of virtu in furniture and 
ornament thronged even such spaciousness as that in 
which the bewildered visitor feels for a moment lost. A 
great fireplace, with carved oaken mantel, mellow-brown 
with years, and genuine fire-dogs of corresponding size, 
yawned in the wall near Leicester's &^^. Beside this 
was a stout rack, almost as large as a four-post bedstead, 
full of substantial logs, each at least five feet long. There 
must have been a cord of seasoned wood .heaped irregu- 
larly within bars and cross-pieces. Some was laid ready 
for lighting in the chimney, kindlings under it. A match 
was all that was needed to furnish a roaring fire. That 
would be a feature in the old feudal halL An antique 
settle, covered with crimson, stood invitingly near the 
hearth. One sitting upon it had a view of the lawn slop- 
ing down to the river, and the umbrageous depths of the 
woods beyond ; of the jutting end and one remaining pier 
of the old bridge on the hither bank, the trailing ivy pen- 
dants drooping to touch the Avon that mirrored castle- 
towers, trees, the broken masonry of one bridge and the 
solid, gray length of the other. In fancying who might 
have sat here on cool autumn days, looking dreamily frorii 
the red recesses of the fireplace to the tranquil picture 
framed by the window ; who walked at twilight upon the 
polished floor over the sheen of the leaping blaze upon the 
dark wood ; who talked, face to face, heart with heart, 
about the hearth on stormy winter nights — I had let the 
others move onward in the lead of the maid-servant who 



58 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

was appointed to show us around. One gets so tired of 
the sing-song iteration of names and dates that she is well- 
pleased to let acres of painted canvas, the dry inventory 
of beds and stools, tables and candlesticks, the list of lords, 
artists and grandees gabbled over in hashed English, sea- 
soned with pert affectations, slip unheeded by her ears. We 
accounted it great gain when we were suffered to enjoy in 
our own way a single picture or a relic that unlocked for 
us a treasure-closet of memory and fancy. 

Drifting dreamily then in the wake of the crowd, I halt- 
ed between an original portrait of Charles I. and one of 
his namesake and successor, trying, for the twentieth time, 
to reconcile the fact of the strong family likeness with 
the pensive beauty of the father and the coarse ugliness 
of the son, when strident tones projected well through 
the nose apprised me that the Traveling American had 
arrived and was on duty. The maid had waited in the 
Great Hall to collect a party of ten before beginning the 
tour. Workmen were hammering somewhere upon or 
about the vaulted roof, and the woman's explanations 
were sometimes drowned by the reverberation. We were 
not chagrined by the loss. We had guide-books and 
catalogues, and each had some specific object of interest 
in view or quest. The Traveling American, benevolent 
to a nuisance, tall, black-eyed and bearded, with an oily 
ripple of syllables betraying the training of camp-meeting 
or political campaign, took up the burden of the girl's 
parrot-talk and rolled it over to us, not omitting to inter- 
lard it with observations deprecatory, appreciative, and 
critical. 

"Original portrait of Henry VHL, by a cotemporary 
artist — name not known. Holbein — most likely ! He was 
always painting the old tyrant. Considered a very excel- 
lent likeness. Although nobody living is authority upon 



PRINCE GUY. 59 

that point. Over the door, two portraits. Small heads, 
you see, hardly larger than cabinet pictures, — of Mary 
and Anne Boleyn. Which is which — did you say, my 
dear ? Oh ! the one to the left is Anne, Henry's second 
wife. Supplanted poor old Kate of Arragon, you remem- 
ber. What a run of Kates the ugly Blue-beard had ! 
Anne is a pretty, modest-looking girl. The wonder is how 
she could have married that fat beer-guzzler over yonder, 
king or no king. Let me see ! Didn't he want to marry 
Mary, too ? 'Seems to me there is some such story. And 
she said ' No, thank you ! ' Hers is a nice face, but she 
isn't such a beauty as her sister." 

Ad infi7iitum — and from the outset, ad nauseam^ to all 
except the four ladies of his party. They tittered and 
nudged one another at each witticism, and looked at us 
for answering tokens of sympathy. We pressed the maid 
onward since we were not allowed to precede her ; tarried 
in the rear of the procession as nearly out of ear-shot as 
might be. But the armory is a succession of narrow 
rooms, and a pause at the head of the train in the last of 
the series brought about a ''block" of the two parties. 
Upon a table was a lump of faded velvet and tarnished 
gold lace, frayed and almost shapeless. 

T: A. {beamingly). ''The saddle upon which Queen 
Elizabeth rode, on the occasion of her memorable visit 
to Kenilworth. She had just given Kenilworth to Leices- 
ter, you remember, as a love-token. He was a Warwick 
(!); so the saddle has naturally remained in the family. 
An interesting and perfectly authenticated relic. Eliza- 
beth invented side-saddles, as you are all aware. This 
was manufactured to, order. It is something to see the 
saddle on which Queen Elizabeth rode. And on such 
an occasion ! It makes an individual, as it were — thrill ! 
Clara ! where are you, my dear." A pretty little girl came 



6o LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

forward, blushingly. '' Put your hand upon it, my child ! 
Now — you can tell them all at home you have had your 
hand upon the place where Queen Elizabeth sat on ! " 

'' Is there no pound in Warwick for vagrant donkeys ?" 
muttered Lex, a youth in our section of the company. 

He had been abroad but three weeks, and the species, 
if not the genus, was a novelty to him. Nor had w^e, when 
as strange to the sight and habits of the creature as was 
he, any adequate prevision of the annoyance he would be- 
come — what a spot, in his ubiquity and irrepressibleness, 
upon our feasts of sight-seeing. Caput had, as usual, 
a crumb of consolation for himself and for us when we 
had shaken ourselves free from our country-people at 
the castle-door by taking a different route from theirs 
through the grounds. 

"At any rate, he knew who Henry VIII. and Anne 
Boleyn and Elizabeth were, and was not altogether igno- 
rant of Leicester and Kenilworth. We need not be utterly 
ashamed of him. Only — we will wait until he has been to 
look at the Warwick Vase before we go in. I can live 
without hearing its history from his lips." 

A notable race have been the Warwicks in English le- 
gends and history, for scores of generations. Princely in 
magnificence ; doughty in war ; in love, ardent ; in ambi- 
tion, measureless. Under Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, 
and Guelph, they have never lacked a man to stand near 
the throne and maintain worthily their dignity. But, in 
the long avenue of stateliness there are heads loftier than 
their fellows. Once in an age, one has stood grandly 
apart, absorbent of such active interest and living sympa- 
thy as we cannot bestow upon family or clan. 

As at Carisbrooke, Charles Stuart and his hapless 
daughter are continually present to our imagination ; and 
the grandmother, whose head, like his, rolled in the saw- 



PRINCE GUY. 6l 

dust of an English scaffold, glides a pale, lovely shade 
with us through the passages of Holyrood ; as at Kenil- 
worth, we think of Elizabeth, the guest, more than of Lei- 
cester, the host, and in Trinity Church at Coventry, pass 
carelessly by painted windows exquisite in modern work- 
manship, to seek in an obscure aisle the patched frag- 
ment of glass that commemorates the chaste Godiva's sac- 
rifice for her people, — so there was for us one Lord of 
Warwick Castle, one Hero of Warwickshire. I shall con- 
fess to so many sentimental weaknesses, so many histori- 
cal heresies in the course of this volume, that I may as 
well divulge this pampered conceit frankly and without 
apology. 

For us — foremost and pre-eminent among the mighty 
men of the house of Warwick who have "found their hands " 
for battle and for statecraft since the foundations of Caesar's 
Tower were laid, stands Earl Guy, Goliath and Paladin of 
the line. Of his deeds of valor, authentic and mythical, 
the witch at the Lodge has much to tell — the traditionary 
lore of the district, more. 

** I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand," 

Shakspeare makes a man of the people, say. Sir Guy 
overthrew and slew the giant Colbrand in the year 926, 
according to Dugdale. Is not the story of this and a hun- 
dred other feats of arms recorded in the " Booke of the 
most victoryous Prince Guy of Warwick " ? When he fell 
in love with the Lady Lettice — (or Phillis — traditions disa- 
gree about the name), the fairest maiden in the kingdom, 
she set him on to perform other prodigies of valor in the 
hope of winning her hand. In joust and in battle-field, at 
home and afar, he wore her colors in his helmet and her 
image in his heart. 

*'She appoynted unto Earl Guy many and grievous 



62 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

tasks, all of which he did. And soe in tyme it came to pass 
that he married her." 

They lived in Warwick Castle, a fortress then, in reality, 
and of necessity, for a few peaceful years. How many w^e 
do not know, only that children were born unto them, and 
that Lettice, laying aside the naughtiness of early coquet- 
ry, grew gentler, more lovable and more fond each day, 
while Earl Guy waxed silent and morose under the pres- 
sure of a mysterious burden, never shared with the wife he 
adored and had periled his soul to win. Suddenly and 
secretly he withdrew to the cell of a holy hermit who lived 
but three miles away, and was lost to the world he had 
filled with rumors of ^'derring-doing." The Countess 
Lettice, distracted by grief at the disappearance of her 
lord, and the failure of her efforts to trace the direction of 
his flight, without a misgiving that while her detectives — 
who must have been of the dullest — scoured land and sea 
in search of the missing giant, he was hidden within sight 
of the turret-windows of Guy's Tower — withdrew into the 
seclusion of her castle and gave herself up to works of 
piety and benevolence. Guy's children had her tenderest 
care ; next to them her poor tenantry. Upon stated days 
of the week a crowd of these pensioners presented them- 
selves at her gates and were fed by her servants. Among 
them came for — some say, twenty, others, forty years, a 
beggar, bent in figure, with muffled features, in rags, and 
unaccompanied by so much as a dog, who silently received 
his dole of the Countess's charity and went his way chal- 
lenged by none. We hope, in hearing it, that the Lady 
Lettice, her fair face the lovelier for the chastening of her 
great grief, sometimes showed herself to the waiting peti- 
tioners. If she did, weeping had surely dulled her vision 
that she did not recognize Earl Guy under his labored 
disguise, for he was a Saul even among brawny Saxons 



PRINCE GUY. 63 

and the semi-barbarous islanders. If the eremite had such 
chance glimpses of his love, they were the only earthly 
consolation vouchsafed him in the tedious life of mortifica- 
tion and prayer. While Lettice, in her bower among her 
maidens, prayed for his return, refusing all intercourse 
with the gay world, her husband divided his time between 
the cave where he dwelt alone and the oratory of the her- 
mit-monk where he spent whole days in supplication, prone 
upon the earth. 

Poor, tortured, ignorant soul ! grand in remorse and in 
penance as in war and in love ! He confessed often to the 
monk, seldom speaking to him at other times. The priest 
kept faithfully the dread secrets confided to him. His abso- 
lution, if he granted it, did not ease the burdened soul. The 
end came when the long exile had dried up life and spirit 
From his death-bed Earl Guy sent to his wife,, by the hand 
of one of her hinds, a ring she had given him in the days 
of their wedded joy, ''praying her, for Jesu's sake to 
visit the wretch from whom it came." He died in her 
faithful arms. They were buried, side by side, near his 
cave. 

This is still pointed out to visitors, — a darksome recess, 
partly natural, enlarged by burrowing hands, — perhaps by 
those of the "victoryous Prince Guy." 

I drew from the Leamington Library, one Saturday 
afternoon, a queer little book, prepared under the auspices 
of a local archaeological society, and treating^ at some 
length of recent discoveries in Guy's Cave by an eminent 
professor of the comparatively new science of classic ar- 
chaeology. Far up in one corner he had uncovered rude 
cuttings in the rock, and with infinite patience and inge- 
nuity, obtained an impression of them. The surface of the 
stone is friable ; the letters are such clumsy Runic charac- 
ters as a warrior of the feudal age would have made had 



64 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

he turned his thoughts to penmanship. The language is 
a barbarous Anglo-Saxon. But they have made out Let- 
tice's name, twice repeated, and in another place, Guy's. 
This last is appended to a line of prayer for '* relief from 
this heavy " — or ''grievous " — " load." 

I read the treatise aloud that evening, excited and tri- 
umphant. 

^^ JVo2Cf, who dare ridicule us for believing in Prince 
Guy?" 

*' It all fits in too well," said candid Prima, sorrow- 
fully. 

But the local savans do not discredit the discovery on 
that account. We drove out to Guy's Cliff the next after- 
noon to attend service in the family chapel of the Percys, 
w^hose handsome mansion is built hard by. The stables are 
hewn out of the same rocky ridge in which Guy dug his 
cell. The chapel occupies the site of the old oratory. 
The bell was tinkling for the hour of w^orship as we entered 
the porch. It is a pretty little building, of gray stone, as 
are the surrounding offices, and on this occasion was toler- 
ably well filled with servants and tenants of ''the Family." 
In a front slip sat the worshippers from the Great House 
— an old lady in widow's mourning, who was, we were 
told, Lady Percy, and three portly British matrons, simple 
in attire and devout in demeanor. A much more august 
personage, pursy and puffing behind a vast red waistcoat, 
whom we supposed to be Chief Butler on week days and 
verger on Sabbath, assigned to us a seat directly back of 
the ladies, and, what was of more consequence in our eyes, 
in a line with a niche in w^hich stands a gigantic statue of 
Earl Guy. This was set up on the site of the oratory, two 
hundred years after his death, by the first of the Plantage- 
nets, Henry II. 

" Our lord, the King, has each day a school for right 



PRINCE GUY. 65 

well-lettered men," says a chronicler of his reign. '' Hence, 
his conversation that he hath with them is busy discussing 
of questions. None is more honest than our king in 
speaking, ne in alms largess. Therefore, as Holy Writ 
saith, we may say of him — ' His name is a precious 
ointment, and the alms of him all the church shall 
take.'" 

Whether as an erudite antiquarian, or as a pious son of 
the church he caused this statue to be placed here. His- 
tory, nor its elder sister. Tradition informs us. We may 
surmise shrewdly, and less charitably, that repentant visit- 
ings of conscience touching his marital infidelities, or the 
scandal of Fair Rosamond, or peradventure, the desire to 
appease the manes of the murdered Becket had something 
to do with the offering. The e&gj was thrown down in 
the ruin of the oratory in the Civil Wars, and for many 
years, lay forgotten in the rubbish. The Percys have 
raised it with reverent hands, and set it — sadly broken and 
defaced — in the place of honor in their chapel. 

There was charming incongruity in the aspect of the 
towering gray figure, with one uplifted arm from which 
sword or battle-axe has fallen, and the appointments and 
occupants of the temple. The head is much disfigured, 
worn away, more than shattered. But there is majesty in 
the outlines and attitude. Our eyes strayed to it oftener, 
dwelt upon it longer, than on the fresh-colored face of the 
spruce Anglican who intoned the service and read a neat 
little homily upon the 51st Psalm, prefaced by a modest 
mention of David's sin in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. 
From what depth of blood-guiltiness had our noble recluse 
entreated deliverance in a day when blood weighed lightly 
upon the souls of brave men ? 

The Sabbath light flowed through the stained windows 
of the chancel and bathed in blessing, the feet of the 



66 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

graven figure ; the lifted arm menaced no more, but signi- 
fied supplication as we prayed : 

^^ Spare T/iou those ivho confess their sins! " 
— was tossed aloft in thanksgiving in the last hymn : — 

' ' O Paradise, O Paradise ! 

Who doth not crave for rest ? 
"Who would not seek the happy land 

Where they that love are blest ? 
Where loyal hearts and true 

Stand ever in the light, 
All rapture through and through, 

In God's most holy sight." 




CHAPTER VL 

Shakspeare and Irving, 

jE had ''Queen's weather" for most of our excur- 
sions in England, and no fairer day than that on 
which we went to Stratford-on-Avon. 

The denizens of the region give the first sound of a to 
the name of the quiet river — as in fate, I do not under- 
take to decide whether they, or we are correct. Their 
derelictions upon the H question are so flagrant as to 
breed distrust of all their inventions and practice in pro- 
nunciation. (Although we did learn to say "Terns" — 
very short — for "T'ames.") 

I wish, for the benefit of future tourists who may read 
these pages, that I had retained the address of the driver 
— and I believe the owner — of the waggonette we secured 
for our drives in Warwickshire. It held our party of six 
comfortably, leaving abundant space in the bottom and 
under the seats for hamper and wraps, and was a stylish, 
easy-running vehicle. The coachman was a fine young 
fellow of, perhaps, six-and-twenty, civil, obliging, and, in 
our experience, an exceptionally intelligent member of 
his class. In this conveyance, and with such pilotage, we 
set out on July 27th, upon one of our red-letter pilgrim- 
ages — fore-ordained within our, for once, prophetic souls 
ever since, as ten-year old children, we used to read Shak- 
speare secretly in the garret on rainy Saturdays. 

It was an old copy relegated to the lumber-chest as too 



6S LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

shabby for the family library. One side of the calf-skin 
cover was gone, and luckily for the morals of the juvenile 
student, " Venus and Adonis " and most of the sonnets had 
followed suite. But an engraved head of William Shak- 
speare was protected by the remaining cover and had left 
a shadow-picture, in white-and-yellow, upon the tissue- 
paper next it. After the title-page followed a dozen or so 
of biography, which we devoured as eagerly as we did 
**The Tempest," "Julius Caesar," and "Macbeth." We 
had read Mrs. Whitney's always-and-ever)rvvhere charming 
''Sights and Insights," before and since leaving America, 
and worn Emory Ann's "realizing our geography" to 
shreds by much quoting. To-day, we were realizing our 
Shakspeare and "Merry" England. 

The drive was surpassingly lovely. The smoothness of 
the road was, in itself, a luxury. It is as evenly-graded 
and free from stones and ruts as a bowling-alley. One 
prolific topic of conversation is denied the morning-callers 
and bashful swains of Warwickshire. They cannot discuss 
the "state of the roads," their uniform condition being 
above criticism. The grass grew quite up to the edge of 
the highway, but was shaven and weedless as a lawn. There 
were hedge-rows instead of fences, and at intervals, we 
had enchanting glimpses up intersecting ways of what we 
had heard and read of all our lives, yet in which we 
scarcely believed until we saw, in their beauty and pictur- 
esqueness, real /anes. The banks, sloping downward from 
the hedges into these, were clothed with vines, ferns and 
field-flowers. One appreciates the exquisite fidelity of 
such sketches from Nature as, — 

'' I know a bank on which the wild thyme blows, 
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows 
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine 
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine — " 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 69 

after seeing the lanes between Leamington and Stratford- 
on-Avon. Double rows of noble trees screened us from 
the sun for a mile at a time, and the hedges, so skillfully 
clipped that the sides and rounded tops were never marred 
by redundant growth, yet bearing no sign of the shears in 
stubby or naked stems, were walls of richest verdure 
throughout the route. The freshness and trimness of the 
English landscape is a joy and wonder forever to those 
unused to the perfection of agriculture which is the 
growth of centuries. There is the finish and luxuriance 
of a pleasure-garden in every prospect in these midland 
counties, and, forgetting that the soil has acknowledged a 
master in the husbandman for more than a thousand years, 
and that, for more than half that time, the highest civiliza- 
tion known to man has held reign in this tiny island, we 
are tempted to think discontentedly of the contrast offered 
by our own magnificent, and, by contrast, crude spaces. 
It was not because of affectation or lack of patriotism that, 
upon our return home, the straggling fences, clogged with 
alder and brambles, the ragged pastures and gullied hill- 
sides were a positive pain to sight and heart. 

Any one who has seen a good photograph of Shak- 
speare's house knows exactly how it looks. The black 
timbers of the frame-work are visible from the outside. 
The spaces between the beams are filled with cement or 
plaster. There are three gables in front, the third, at the 
upper corner, broader and higher than the others. The 
chimney is in the end-gable, joining this last at right angles, 
and is covered with ivy. A pent-house protects the main 
entrance. Wide latticed windows light the ground-floor ; 
a latticed oriel projects from the second story of the taller 
division of the building. Smaller casements in line with 
this are set in each of the principal upper rooms. The 
house is flush with the street, and is probably smarter in 



yo * LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

its "■ restoration," than when Master John Shakspeare, 
wool-dealer, lived here. We entered, without intervening 
vestibule or passage, a square room, the ceiling of which 
was not eight feet high. A peasant's kitchen, that was 
also best-room, with a broken stone floor and plastered 
walls checquered by hewn beams. 

Two sisters, who dressed, looked, moved and spoke 
absurdly alike, are the custodians of the cottage. One 
met us with a professional droop of a not-elastic figure, a 
mechanical smile and an immediate plunge into business : 

** After the removal of the Shakspeare family from this 
humble tenement, it was leased to a prosperous butcher, 
w^ho occupied this room as a shop. That was, indeed, a 
sad desecration, and one that accounts for the dilapidation 
of the floor, it having been shattered by chopping meat 
upon it." 

No reasonable visitor could desire to linger in the apart- 
ment longer than sufficed for the delivery of the compre- 
hensive formula, and she tiptoed into the adjoining room : 

*'In this the family were accustomed to sit when they 
were not dressed in their best clothes " — mincingly jocular. 

Caput and I, regardless of routine, strayed back into 
the outer kitchen to get a more satisfactory look, and after 
our fashion, and that of Mr. Swiveller's Marchioness, '' to 
make-believe very hard." We wanted to shut our eyes — 
and ears — and in a blessed interval of silence, to see the 
honest dealer in wool — member of the corporation ; for 
two years chamberlain ; high bailiff in 1569 ; and in 157 1 
— his son William being then seven years of age — chief 
alderman of Stratford, standing in the street-door chatting 
with a respectful fellow-townsman ; Mary his wife, pass- 
ing from dresser to hearth, and, upon a stool in the chim- 
ney corner, the Boy, chin propped upon his hand, think- 
ing — '* idling," his industrious seniors would have said. 



- SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 7 1 

We had hardly passed the door of communication when 
sister No. i having transferred the rest of the visitors to 
No. 2, and sent them up-stairs, reappeared. The same 
professional dip of the starched figure ; the manufactured 
smile, and, mistaking us for fresh arrivals, she began, 
without variation of syllable or inflection : 

"After the removal of the Shakspeare family from this 
humble tenement, it was leased to a prosperous butcher, 
who occupied this room as a shop. That was, indeed, a 
sad desecration — " 

We fled to the upper story. The stairs give upon an ante- 
chamber corresponding with the back-kitchen. Against 
the rear-w^all, in a gaudy frame, and, itself looking un- 
picturesquely new and distinct, is the celebrated '' Strat- 
ford Portrait " — another restoration. It is not spurious, 
having been the property of a respectable county-family 
for upwards of a century, and there is abundant docu- 
mentary testimony of its authenticity. It shows us a 
handsomer man than do the other pictures of the Great 
Play- Wright. In fact, it is too good-looking. One could 
believe it the representment of the jolly, prosperous w^ool- 
factor, complacent under the shower of municipal honors. 
It is difficult to reconcile the smooth, florid face, the 
scarlet lips, dainty moustache and imperial, with thoughts 
of Lear, Hamlet, and Coriolanus. 

'* The room in which Shakspeare was born " was quite 
full of pilgrims — quiet, well-bred and non-enthusiastic, 
exclaiming softly over such signatures as Walter Scott's 
upon the casement-panes, and Edmund Kean's upon the 
side of the chimney devoted to actors' autographs. They 
indulged in no conversational raptures — for which we 
were grateful. But the hum of talk, the rustle and stir 
were a death-blow to fond and poetic phantasies. We 
gazed coldly upon the scrawlings that disfigure the walls 



72 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and blur the windows ; incredulously upon the deal table 
and chairs ; critically at the dirty bust which offered still 
another and a different image of the man we refused to 
believe came by this shabby portal into the world that was 
to worship him as the greatest of created intellects. Such 
disillusions are more common with those who visit old 
shrines in the role of "passionate pilgrims " than they are 
willing to admit. 

I wanted to think of Shakspeare's cradle and the mother- 
face above it ; how he had been carried by her to the case- 
ment — thrown wide on soft summer days like this — and 
clapped his hands at sight of birds and trees, and boys and 
girls playing in the street, as my babies, and all other 
babies, have done from the days of Cain. How he had 
rolled and crept upon the floor, and caught many a tum- 
ble in his trial-steps, and fallen asleep at twilight in the 
warm covert of mother-arms. I had thought of it a thou- 
sand times before ; I have been all over it a thousand times 
since. While on the hallowed spot, I saw the low room, 
common and homely, with bulging rafters and rough-cast 
sides, the uneven boards of the floor, brown and blotched 
— the vulgarity of everything, the consecration of nothing. 

The museum in an adjoining room caused a percepti- 
ble rise in the spirits, dampened by our inability to "real- 
ize," as conscience decreed, in the birth-chamber. The 
desk used by Shakspeare at school looked plausible. There 
were realistic touches in the lid bespattered with ink and 
hacked by jack-knife. The hinges are of leather. We be- 
lieved that he kept gingerbread, sausage-roll, toffey, green 
apples, and cock-chafers with strings tied to their hind legs, 
in it. We did not quibble over Shakspeare's signet-ring, en- 
graved with " W. S. " and a lover's knot. He might have sat 
in the chair reputed to have been used in the merry club- 
meetings at the Falcon Inn, the sign of which is to be seen 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 'Jl 

here. His coat-of-arms, a falcon and spear, was proof that 
his father bore, by right, the grand old name of ''gentle- 
man." One of the very tame dragons in charge of the 
premises bore down upon us while we were looking at 
' this. 

" It is a singular coincidence, too remarkable to be only 
a coincidence" — her tones a ripple of treacle — "that the 
falcon should be the bird that shakes its wings most con- 
stantly while in flight. Combine this circumstance with 
the spear, and he is a very dull student of heraldry who 
cannot trace the derivation of the name of the Immortal 
Bard." 

Caput set his jaw dumbly. It was Dux, younger and 
less discreet, who said, *' By Jove ! " 

The crayon head exhibited here is a copy of the " Chan- 
dos Portrait," taken at the age of forty-three. It also is 
reputed to be an excellent likeness, and resembles neither 
the bust in the church nor the famous "Death Mask," of 
which there is here preserved an admirable photograph. 
After studying all other pictures extant of him, one reverts 
to the last-mentioned as the truest embodiment of the ideal 
Shakspeare we know by his works. The face, sunken and 
rigid in death, yet bears the impress of a loftier intellectu- 
ality and more dignified manhood than do any of the 
painted and sculptured presentments. The only letter 
written to Shakspeare, known to be in existence, is pre- 
served in this museum. It is signed by one Richard Quy- 
ney, who would like to borrow thirty pounds of the poet. 
One speculates, in deciphering the yellow-brown leaf that 
would crumble at a touch, upon the probabilities of the 
writer having had a favorable reply, and why this particu- 
lar epistle should have been kept so carefully. It was 
probably pure accident. It could hardly have been a 
unique in the owner's collection if the stories of his rapid 
4 



74 * LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

prosperity and the character of the boon-companions of 
his early days be true. 

As we paused in the lower front room to strengthen our 
recollection of the tout ense7nble^ leaning upon the sill of the 
window by which the child and boy must often have stood 
at evening, gazing into the quiet street, or seen the moon 
rise hundreds of times over the dark line of roofs, custo- 
dian No. I drooped us a professional adieu, and dividing 
the wire-and-pulley smile impartially between us and a 
fresh bevy of pilgrims upon the threshold, commenced 
with the automatic precision of a cuckoo-clock : 

''After the removal of the Shakspeare family from this 
humble tenement it was leased to a prosperous butcher, 
who occupied this room as a shop. That was, indeed, a 
sad desecration — " 

'' Eight day or daily ? " queried Lex, as we w^alked down 
the street. 

We lingered for a moment at the building to which went 
Shakspeare as a 

*' Whining school-boy, with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping, like snail, 
Unwillingly to school." 

It is " the thing " to quote the line before the gray walls 
capped by mossy slates, of the Grammar-School founded 
by Henry IV. The quadrangle about which the lecture- 
rooms and offices are ranged is not large, and is entered by 
a low gateway. Over the stones of this court-yard Shak- 
speare's feet, 

" Creeping in to school, 
Went storming out to playing." 

Boy-nature, in 1574, was the same, in these respects, as 
in 1874, Shakspeare and Whittier being judges. 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 75 

Stratford-on-Avon is a clean, quiet country town, that 
would have dwindled into a village long ago had not John 
Shakspeare's son been born in her High Street. Antique 
houses, with peaked gables and obtrusive beams, deep- 
stained by years — (Time's record is made with inky dyes, 
and in broad English down-strokes, in this climate) — are 
to be seen on every street. Every second shop along our 
route had in its one window a show of what we would call 
''Shakspeare Notions;" stamped handkerchiefs, mugs, 
platters, paper-cutters and paper-weights, and a host of . 
photographs, all commemorative of the town and the 
Man. 

*^New Place" was purchased by Shakspeare in 1597, 
and enlarged and adorned as befitted his amended fortunes. 
We like to hear that, while he lived in London, not a year 
elapsed without his paying a visit to Stratford, and that in 
1 6 13, upon his withdrawal from public life, he made New 
Place his constant residence, spending his time *' in ease, 
retirement and the society of friends. " In the garden grew, 
and, long after his death flourished, the mulberry-tree 
planted by his own hands. In the museum we had seen a 
goblet carved out of the wood of this tree, and, in a sealed 
bottle, the purple juice of its berries. New Place did not 
pass from the poet's family until the death of his grand- 
daughter, Lady Barnard. It is recorded that, in 1643, this 
lady and her husband were the hosts of Henrietta Maria, 
Queen of Charles I. She was thankful in the turmoil and 
distrust of civil war, to find an asylum for three weeks un- 
der the roof that had covered a greater than the lordliest 
Stuart who ever paltered with a nation's trust. At Lady 
Barnard's decease, New Place was sold, first to one, then 
another proprietor, until Sir Hugh Clopton remodelled 
and almost rebuilt the house. After him came the Rev. 
Francis Gastrell who, in a fit of passion at what he con- 



^6 LOITERIXGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ceived to be the exorbitant tax levied upon the mansion, 
pulled it down to the foundation-stones. In the same 
Christian frame of mind, he hewed down the mulberry-tree, 
then in a vigorous old age, a giant of its tribe, " because 
so many people stopped in the street to stare at it, there- 
by inconveniencing himself and family." Peevish fatuous- 
ness that has a parallel in the discontent of the present 
incumbent of Haworth that, ''because he chances to in- 
habit the parsonage in w^hich the Bronte sisters lived and 
died, he must be persecuted by throngs of visitors to it 
and the church." It is not his fault, he pathetically re- 
minds the public, that people of genius once dwelt there, 
and he proposes to demonstrate the dissimilarity of those 
who now occupy it by renovating Haworth Rectory and 
erecting a new church upon the site of that in which the 
Brontes are buried. 

Of New Place nothing remains but the foundations, 
swathed in the kindly coverlet of turf, that in England, so 
soon cloaks deformity with graceful sweeps and swells of 
verdure. The grounds are tended w4th pious care, and 
nobody carps that visitors always loiter here on their way 
from Shakspeare's birth-place to his tomb. 

We passed to the fane of Holy Trinity between two rows 
of limes in fullest leaf. The avenue is broad, but the noon 
beams w^ere severed into finest particles in filtering through 
the thick green arch ; the door closing up the farther end 
was an arch of grayer glooms. The church-yard is paved 
with blackened tombstones. The short, rich grass over- 
spreads mounds and hollow^s, defines the outlines of the 
oblong, flat slabs, sprouts in crack and cranny. The peace 
of the summer heavens rested upon the dear old town — the 
river slipping silently beneath the bridge in the background 
— the venerable church, in the vestibule of w^iich we stayed 
our steps to hearken to music from within. The organist 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 7/ 

was practising a dreamy voluntary, rising, now, into full 
chords that left echoes vibrating among the groined arches 
after he resumed his pensive strain. Walking softly and 
slowly, lest our tread upon the paved floor might awake 
dissonant echoes, we gained the chancel. An iron rail 
hinders the nearer approach to the Grave. This barrier 
is a recent erection and a work of supererogation, since 
that sight-seer has not been found so rude as to trample 
over the sacred dust. 

Upon the stone, — e^ren with the rest of the flags — con- 
cealing the vault, lay a strip of white cloth, stamped with 
a fac-simile of the epitaph composed by Shakspeare for 
his tomb. Volumes have been written to explain its mean- 
ing, and treatises to prove that there is nothing recondite 
in its menace. Since the rail prevented us from getting to 
that side of the slab next the inner wall of the chancel, we 
must have read the inscription upside-down but for the 
convenient copy : 

" Good frend for Iesvs sake forbears, 
to digg the dust encloased heare : 
Blest be y^ man y""^ spares thes stones, 
And cvrst be he y''^ moves my bones," 

Our eyes returned again and again to the weird lines 
and the plain stone, as thoughts of what lay beneath it 
were chased away by the wretched pomp of the monument 
raised by the nearest relatives of the dead. It is set in the 
chancel wall about the height of a tall man's head above 
the floor and almost directly over the burial-vault. The 
light from a gorgeous painted window streams upon it. 
Just beyond, nearer the floor, the efiigy of a knight in 
armor lies upon a recessed sarcophagus. The half-length 
figure intended for Shakspeare is in an arched niche, the 
family escutcheon above it. On each side is a naked boy 
of forbidding countenance. One holds an inverted torch. 



78 * LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the other a skull and spade. A second and larger skull 
surmounts the monument. The marble man-r-we could 
not call it Shakspeare — writes, without looking at pen or 
paper, within an open book, laid upon a cushion. The 
whole affair, niche, desk, cushion and attitude, reminds 
one ludicrously of the old-time pulpits likened by Mr. 
Beecher to a ''toddy tumbler with a spoon in it." The 
" spoon " in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, wears the 
dress of a gentleman of his day, a full, loose surcoat, with 
falling collar and cuffs. The forehead is high and bald, 
the face smooth as a pippin, the eyes have a bold, hard 
stare ; upon the mouth, and, indeed, upon all the visage, 
dwells a smirk, aggressive and ineffable. It is the face of 
a conceited, pompous, heavy fool, which the fine phren- 
ological development of the cranium cannot redeem. We 
cannot make it to be to us the man whom, according to 
the stilted lines below, — 

'* Envious death has plast 
Within this monument." 

"Yet it must have been a likeness," ventured Caput. 
*' It was seen and approved by his daughters." 

We persisted in our infidelity, and refused to look again at 
the smirking horror. When it was set up in the mortuary 
pillory overhead, it was colored from nature. The hair, 
Vandyke beard, and moustache wxre auburn, the tight, pro- 
tuberant eyes hazel, the dress red and black. Seventy years 
afterward, it was painted white and was probably a shade 
less odious for the whitewashing. Lately the colors have 
been restored to their pristine brightness and varnish. 

Another flat slab bears the inscription : — 

•* Heere lyeth interred the body of Anne, Wife 
OF William Shakespeare who dep'ted this life the 

6^^ DAY OF AVGT ' 1 623 ' BEING OF THE AGE OF ' 67 * YEARES. 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 79 

She was a woman of twenty-five, he a lad of eighteen 
when they were married, — a circumstance that dampens 
the romantic imaginings we would fain foster to their 
full growth, in visiting the vine-draped cottage of Anne 
Hathaway. We put from us, while standing by the 
graves of husband and wife, the truth that when he, a 
hale, handsome gentleman of fifty-three, sat at eventide 
in the shadow of the mulberry-tree, or, as tradition paints 
him, leaned upon the half-door of a mercer's shop and 
made impromptu epigrams upon passing neighbors, — 
Anne was a woman of sixty, who had best abide in-doors 
after the dew began to fall. 

We went to the Red Horse Inn by merest accident. 
We must lunch somewhere, having grown ravenously 
hungry even in Stratford-on-Avon, and left the choice of 
a place to the driver of our waggonette. Five minutes' rat- 
tling drive over the primitive pavements between the rows 
of quaint old houses, and we were in a covered passage 
laid with round stones. A waiter had his hand upon the 
door by the time we stopped ; whisked us out before we 
knew where we were, and into a low-ceiled parlor on the 
ground-floor, looking upon the street. A lumbering ma- 
hogany table was in the middle of the floor. Clumsy 
chairs were marshalled against the wainscot. Old prints 
hung around the walls. The carpet was very substantial 
and very ugly. A subtle intuition, a something in the 
air of the room — maybe, an unseen Presence, arrested me 
just within the door. I had certainly never been here 
before, yet I stood still, a bewilderment of reminiscence 
and association enveloping my senses, like fragrant mist. 

** Can this be " — I said slowly, feeling for words — ^' Geof- 
frey Crayon's Parlor ? " 

I tell the incident just as it occurred. Not one of us 
knew the name of the inn. Our guide-books did not 



8o XOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

give it, nor had one of the party bethought him or her- 
self that Washington Irving had ever visited Stratford or 
left a record of his visit. None of the many tourists 
who had described the town to us had mentioned the 
antique hostelry. What followed our entrance came to 
me, — a ''happening" I do not attempt to explain. 

The waiter did not smile. English servants consider 
the play of facial muscles impertinent when addressing 
superiors. But he answered briskly, as he had opened the 
carriage-door. 

*' Yes, mem ! Washington Irving's parlor ! Yes, mem ! " 

"And this is the Red Horse Inn ?" 

" The Red Horse Inn ! Yes, mem ! " 

*' Where, then, is Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre?" looking 
at the grate. 

He vanished, and was back in a moment, holding some- 
thing wrapped in red plush. A steel poker, clean, bright 
and slender, and, engraved upon one flat side in neat 
characters, — ''Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre." 

I took it in speechless reverence. The others gathered 
about me and it. 

"iV^c?w" — said Caput, in excruciating and patient po- 
liteness, wheeling up the biggest arm-chair, — "if you will 
have the goodness to sit down, and tell us what it all 
means ! " 

I had read the story thirty years before in a bound 
volume of the "New York Mirror," itself then, at least 
ten years old. But it came back to me almost word for 
word, (what we read in those days, we digested ! ) as I sat 
there, the sceptre upon my knee, and rehearsed the tale 
to the circle of listeners. 

Since our return to America I have hunted up the old 
"Mirror," and take pleasure in transcribing a portion of 
Mr. Willis' pleasant story of the interview between him- 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING. 8 1 

self and the landlady who remembered Mr. Irving's 
visit. 

''Mrs. Gardiner proceeded: 'I was in and out of the 
coffee-room the night he arrived, mem, and I sees directly, 
by his modest ways and his timid look, that he was a gen- 
tleman, and not fit company for the other travellers. 
They were all young men, sir, and business travellers, and 
you know, mem, ignorance takes the advantage of modest 
merits and after their dinner they were very noisy and 
rude. So I says to Sarah, the chambermaid, says I, ' that 
nice gentleman can't get near the fire, and you go and 
light a fire in number three, and he shall sit alone, and 
it shant cost him nothing, for I like the looks on him.' 
Well, mem, he seemed pleased to be alone, and after his 
tea he puts his legs up over the grate, and there he sits with 
the poker in his hand till ten o'clock. The other travel- 
lers went to bed, and at last the house was as still as mid- 
night, all but a poke in the grate, now and then, in num- 
ber three, and every time I heard it I jumped up and lit 
a bed-candle, for I was getting very sleepy, and I hoped 
he was getting up to ring for a light. Well, mem, I nod- 
ded and nodded, and still no ring at the bell. At last I 
says to Sarah, says I, ' Go into number three and upset 
something, for I am sure that gentleman has fallen asleep.' 
'La, ma'am!' says Sarah, 'I don't dare.' 'Well, then," 
says I, ' I'll goj ' So I opens the door and I says — ' If 
you please, sir, did you ring?' little thinking that ques- 
tion would ever be written down in such a beautiful book, 
mem." 

(She had already showed to her listeners "a much-worn 
copy of the Sketch- Book," in which Mr. Irving records 
his pilgrimage to Stratford.) 

" He sat with his feet on the fender, poking the fire, and 
a smile on his face, as if some pleasant thought was in his 
4* 



82 ' LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

mind. *No, ma'am,' says he, *I did not' I shuts the 
door and sits down again, for I hadn't the heart to tell him 
it was late, for he was a gentle?nan fiat to speak rudely to^ mem. 
Well, it was past twelve o'clock when the bell did ring. 
* There ! ' says I to Sarah, * thank heaven he has done 
thinking, and we can go to bed ! ' So he walked up stairs 
with his light, and the next morning he was up early and 
off to the Shakspeare house 

*' There's a Mr. Vincent that comes here sometimes, and 
he says to me one day — * So, Mrs. Gardiner, you're finely 
immortalized ! Read that ! ' So the minnit I read it I re- 
membered w4io it was and all about it, and I runs and gets 
the number three poker, and locks it up safe and sound, 
and by and by I sends it to Brummagem and has his name 
engraved on it ; and here you see it, sir, and I wouldn't 
take no money for it." 

Mr. Willis was in Stratford-on-Avon in 1836. In 1877 
the ''sceptre" was displayed to us, as I have narrated, as 
one of the valuable properties of the Red Horse Inn, 
although good Mrs. Gardiner long ago laid down her 
housekeeping keys forever. 

We sat late over the luncheon served in the parlor, 
which could not have been refurnished since Irving " had 
his tea " there, too happy in the chance that had brought 
us to the classic chamber to be otherwise than merry over 
the stout bill, one-third of which should have been set 
down to Geoffrey Crayon's account. The Britons are 
thorough utilitarians. Nowhere do you get "sentiment 
gratis." 

We drove home in the summer twilight, that lasts in the 
British Isles until dawn, and enables one to read with ease 
until ten o'clock p.m. Our road skirted the confines of 
Charlecote, the country-seat of the Lucys. The family 
was at home, and visitors were therefore excluded. It is a 



SHAKSPEARE AND IRVING, 8$ 

fine old place, but the park, which is extensive, looked 
like a neglected common after the perfectly appointed 
grounds of Stoiteleigh Abbey, through which we passed. 
The fence enclosing the Charlecote domain was a sort of 
double hurdle, in miserable repair, and intertwisted with 
wild vines and brambles. The deer were gathered in 
groups and herds under oaks that may have sheltered their 
forefathers in Shakspeare's youth. Scared by our wheels, 
rabbits scampered from hedge to coverts of bracken. If 
the fences were in no better state *'in those ruder ages, 
when" — to quote Shakspeare's biographer — **the spirit of 
Robin Hood was yet abroad, and deer and coney-stealing 
classed, with robbing orchards, among the more adventur- 
ous, but ordinary levities of youth," the trespass for which 
the Stratford poacher was arraigned was a natural surren- 
der to irresistible temptation, and the deed easily done. 




CHAPTER VII. 

KenilwortJu 

E never decided whether it was to our advantage or 
disappointment that we all re-read the novel of 
that name before visiting Kenilworth. It is cer- 
tain that we came away saying bitterh^ uncharitable things 
of Oliver Cromwell, to whose command, and not to Time, 
is due the destruction of one of the finest castles in the 
realm. Caput, who, after the habit of amateur archaeolo- 
gists, never stirs without an imaginary surv^eyor's chain 
in hand, had studied up the road and ruins in former 
visits, and acted now as guide and historian. We were loth 
to accept the country- road, narrower and more rutty than 
any other in the vicinity, as that once filled by the stupen- 
dous pageant described by Scott and graver chroniclers as 
unsurpassed in costliness and display by any in the Eliza- 
bethan age. Our surveyor talked of each stage in the 
progress with the calm confidence of one who had made a 
part of the procession. We knew to a minute at what 
hour of the night the queen — having been delayed by a 
hunt at Warwick Castle — with Leicester at her bridle-rein, 
passed the brook at the bottom of Castle-hill. A stream 
so insignificant, and crossed by such a common little^ 
bridge, we were ashamed to speak of them in such a con- 
nection. The column of courtiers and soldiers thronging 
the highway was ablaze with the torches carried by Leices- 



KENILWORTH. 8$ 

ter's men. The castle, illuminated to the topmost battle- 
ment, made so brave a show the thrifty virgin needed to 
feast her eyes often and much upon the splendid beauty of 
the man at her saddle-bow to console herself for having 
presented him with Kenilworth and the estates — twenty 
miles in circumference — pertaining thereunto. 

All this was fresh in our minds when we alighted where 
Leicester sprang from his charger and knelt at the stirrup 
of his royal mistress in welcome to his ''poor abode." 
The grand entrance is gone, and most of the outer wall. 
There is no vestige of the drawbridge on which was sta- 
tioned the booby-giant with Flibbertigibbet under his 
cloak. By the present gateway stands a stately lodge, 
the one habitable building on the grounds. " R. D." is 
carved upon the porch-front, and within it, in divers 
places. Attached to this is a rear extension, so mean in 
appearance we were savagely delighted to learn that it was 
put up in Cromwell's time. Passing these by the payment 
of a fee, and shaking ourselves free from the briery hold of 
the women who assaulted us with petitions to buy unripe 
fruit, photographs, and "Kenilworth Guides," we saw a 
long slope of turf rising to the level, whereon are Caesar's 
and Leicester's Towers, square masses of masonry, crum- 
bling at top and shrouded, for most of their height, in a 
peculiarly tough and "stocky" species of ivy. The walls 
of Caesar's Tower — the only portion of the original edifice 
(founded in the reign of Henry L) now standing — vary 
from ten to sixteen feet in thickness. Behind these, on 
still higher ground, are the ruins of the Great Hall, built 
by John of Gaunt. In length more than eighty feet, in 
width more than forty, it is, although roofless, magnificent. 
The Gothic arches of the windows, lighting it from both 
sides, are perfect and beautiful in outline. Ivy-clumps 
hang heavy from oriel and buttress. To the left of this is 



S6 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS, 

Mervyn's, or the Strong Tower, a winding stair leading up to 
the summit. A broken wall makes a feint of enclosing the 
castle-grounds, seven acres in area, but it may be scaled or 
entered through gaps at many points. The moat down which 
the '* Lady of the Lake," floating '' on an illuminated mova- 
ble island," seemed to walk on the water to offer Elizabeth 
''the lake, the lodge, the lord," is a dry ravine, choked 
with rubbish, overgrown with grass and nettles. The 
decline of the hill up which we walked to the principal 
ruins was the ''base court." A temporary bridge, seventy 
feet long, was thrown over this from the drawbridge to 
Caesar's Tower, and the queen, riding upon it, was greeted 
by mythological deities, who offered her gifts from vine- 
yard, garden, field, and fen, beginning the ovation where 
the modern hags had pressed upon us poor pictures, acerb 
pears and apples. 

This, then, was Kenilworth. We strolled into the Ban- 
queting or Great Hall — now fioorless — where Elizabeth 
and Leicester led the minuet on the night when the fa- 
vorite's star was highest and brighest ; laughing among 
ourselves, in recalling the Scottish diplomafs saying that 
"his queen danced neither so high nor so disposedly " as 
did the Maiden Monarch. We climbed Mervyn's Tower in 
which Amy Robsart had her lodging ; looked down into 
"The Pleasaunce," a turfy ruin, in its contracted bounds a 
dismay to us until the surveyor's chain measured, for our 
comfort, what must have been the former limits. It is 
now an irregular area, scarcely more than a strip of 
ground, and we sought vainly for a nook sufficiently re- 
tired to have been the scene of the grotto-meeting between 
Elizabeth and the deserted wife. 

" Of course you are aware that Amy Robsart was never 
at Kenilworth ; that she had been dead two years when 
Elizabeth visited Leicester here ; that he was secretly mar- 



KENILWORTH. 8/ 

ried again, this time to the beautiful widow of Lord Shef- 
field, the daughter of Lord William Howard, uncle to the 
queen ? " said Caput, drily. 

Argument with an archaeologist is as oxygen to fire. 
We turned upon him, instead, in a crushing body of in- 
fidel denial. 

''We received, without cavil, your account — and Scott's 
— of the torch-light procession, including Elizabeth's dia- 
monds, after a day's hunting, and horsemanship ; of Lei- 
cester's glittering 'like a golden image with jewels and 
cloth of gold.' We decline to discredit Scott now ! " 

He shrugged his shoulders ; took a commanding position 
upon the ruined wall ; his eyes swept the landscape discon- 
tentedly. 

" We dwarf the history of Kenilworth to one little week," 
he said. " I am tempted to wish that Scott had never 
written that fiction, splendid as it is. Do you know that 
Caesar's Tower — by the way, it will outlast Leicester's, 
whose building, like the founder, lacks integrity — do you 
know that Caesar's Tower was begun early in the twelfth 
century ? that it was the stronghold of Simon de Montfort 
in his quarrel with Henry HI. ? Edward Longshanks, 
then Prince Edward, attacked de Montfort in Sussex, took 
from him banners and other spoils and drove him back 
into Kenilworth, which the insurgents held for six months. 
His father, the Earl of Leicester, met Edward's army next 
day on the other side of the Avon — over there ! " pointing. 
"Gazing, as he marched, toward his good castle of Kenil- 
worth, he saw his own banners advancing, and soon per- 
ceived that they were borne by the enemy. 

"It is over!" said the old warrior. "The Lord have 
mercy upon our souls, for our bodies are Prince Edward's ! " 

" He was killed, fighting like a lion, in the battle that 
followed. And, all the while, his son, chafing at his in- 



88 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ability to help him, lay, — the lion's cub at bay, — within 
these walls. There were Leicesters and Leicesters, al- 
though some are apt to ignore all except the basest of the 
name — the Robert Dudley of whom it was said, * that he 
was the son of a duke, the brother of a king, the grandson 
of an esquire, and the great-grandson of a carpenter ; that 
the carpenter was the only honest man in the family, and 
the only one of Leicester's near relatives who died in his 
bed.' Edward II. — poor, favorite-ridden wretch! was a 
prisoner at Kenilworth after the execution of the Despens- 
ers, father and son. He was forced to sign his own de- 
position in the Great Hall, where you thought of nothing 
just now but Elizabeth's dancing. The breaking of the 
white wand, — a part of the ceremonial at a king's death — 
by Sir Thomas Blount, before the eyes of the trembling 
sovereign, is one of the most dramatic events in English 
history. Another royal imbecile, Henry VI., had an asylum 
here during Jack Cade's Rebellion. There was stringent 
need for such fortresses as Kenilworth and Warwick in 
those times." 

We heard it all, — and with interest, sitting upon the 
edge of the ivied wall of Mervyn's Tower, overlooking a 
land as fair as Beulah, in alternations of hill and vale ; of 
plains golden with grain, and belts and groves of grand 
old trees ; the many-gabled roofs and turrets of great 
houses rising from the midst of these, straggling villages 
of red-brick cottages on the skirts of manorial estates in- 
dicating the semi-feudal system still prevailing in the land. 
The Avon gleamed peacefully between the borders tilled 
by men who never talk, and most of whom have never 
heard, of the brave Leicester who fought his last battle 
where they swing their scythes. Yet he was known to the 
yeomen of his day as " Sir Simon the Righteous." 

''There were Leicesters and Leicesters," Caput had 



KENILWORTH. 89 

truly said, and that the proudest and most magnificent of 
them all was the most worthless. But when we had pick- 
ed our way down the broken stairs, and sat in the shadow 
of Caesar's Tower, upon the warm sward, watching men 
drive the stakes and stretch the cords of a marquee, for 
the use of a party who were to pic-nic on the morrow 
among the ruins, we said : — 

"To-morrow, we will see Leicester's Hospital and Lei- 
cester's tomb, at Warwick." 

The w^alk from Leamington to Warwick was one greatly 
affected by us as a morning and afternoon ''constitu- 
tional." It was delightful in itself, and we never wearied 
of rambling up one street and down another of the town. 
We never saw Broek, in Holland, but it cannot be cleaner 
than this Rip Van Winkle of a Warwickshire village, 
where the very children are too staid and civil — or too de- 
void of enterprise — to stare at strangers. A house under 
fifty years of age would be a disreputable innovation. 
House-leek, and yellow stone-crop, and moss grow upon 
the roofs ; the windows have small panes, clear and 
bright, and, between parted muslin curtains, each window- 
sill has its pots of geraniums and gillyflowers. 

We bought some buns in a little shop, the mistress of 
which was a pretty young woman, with the soft English 
voice one hears even among the lowly, and the punctilious 
misapplication of h we should, by this time, have ceased 
to observe. 

''The Fl'earl h'of Leicester's 'Ospital h'is a most h'inter- 
esting h'object," she assured us, upon our inquiring the 
shortest way thither. " H'all strangers who h'admire 
'istorical relicts make a point h'of visiting the H'earl h'of 
Leicester's 'Ospital." 

The street has been regraded, probably laid out and 
built up since the "'istorical relict" was founded, in 15 71. 



90 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

We would call it a "Refuge," the object being to provide 
a home for the old age of a " Master and twelve breth- 
ren," the latter, invalided or superannuated tenants or 
soldiers, who had spent their best days in the service of 
the Leicesters. It was a politic stroke to offer the ease, 
beer, and tobacco of the Refuge as a reward for hard 
work and hard fighting. We may be sure Robert Dudley 
did not overlook this. We may hope — if we can — that 
he had some charitable promptings to the one good deed 
of his life. 

The Hospital is perched high, as if deposited there by 
the deluge, upon an Ararat platform of its own. The plas- 
tered walls are criss-crossed by chocolate-colored beams ; 
the eaves protrude heavily ; odd carvings, such as a boy 
might make with a pocket-knife, divide the second and 
third stories. It is a picturesque antique. People in 
America would speak of it, were it set up in one of our 
surburban towns, as a " remarkable specimen of the Queen 
Anne style." One learns not to say such things where 
Queen Anne is a creature of yesterday. A curious old 
structure is the "relict," — we liked and adopted the 
word, — and so incommodious within we marveled that 
the brethren, ^now appointed from Gloucester and War- 
wickshire, did not "commute," as did "our twelve poor 
gentlemen " in Dickens' Haunted Man. But they still 
have their "pint" — I need not say of what — a day, and 
their "pipe o' baccy," and keep their coal in a vast, cob- 
webby hall, in which James I. once dined at a town ban- 
quet. They cook their dinners over one big kitchen- 
fire, but eat them in their own rooms ; have daily prayer, 
each brother using his own prayer-book, in the Gothic 
chapel over the doorway, the " H'earl of Leicester" star- 
ing at them out of the middle of the painted window, and 
wear blue cloth cloaks in cold weather, or in the street. 



KENILWORTH. 91 

adorned with silver badges upon the sleeves. These bear 
the Leicester insignia, the Bear and Ragged Staff, and 
are said to be the very ones presented by him to the Hos- 
pital. Sir Walter Scott is — according to Caput — respon- 
sible for the fact that, in the opinion of the ladies of our 
company, the most valuable articles preserved in the in- 
stitution are a bit of discolored satin, embroidered by 
Amy Robsart (at Cumnor-Hall ?) with the arms of her 
faithless lord, and a sampler whereupon, by the aid of a 
lively imagination, one can trace her initials. 

How much of heart-ache and heart-sinking, of hope de- 
ferred, and baffled desire may have been stitched into 
these faded scraps of stuff that have so long outlasted her 
and her generation ! Needlework has been the chosen 
confidante of women since Eve, with shaking fingers and 
tear-blinded eyes, quilted together fig-leaves, in token of 
the transgression that has kept her daughters incessantly 
busy upon tablier, panier, and jupon. 

From the Hospital we went to St. Mary's Church. 
There is a cellary smell in all these old stone churches 
where slumber the mighty dead, suggestive of must, 
mould, and cockroaches, and on the hottest day a chill, 
like that of an ice-house. Our every step was upon a 
grave ; the walls were faced with mortuary brasses and 
tablets. The grating of the ever-rusty lock and hinges 
awakened groans and whispers in far recesses ; our sub- 
dued tones were repeated in dreary sighs and mutterings, 
as if the crowd below stairs were complaining that wealth 
and fame could not purchase the repose they were denied 
in life. Our cicerone in St. Mary's was a pleasant-faced 
woman, in a bonnet — of course. We never saw a pew- 
holder or church-guide of her sex, bonnetless while exer- 
cising her profession. Usually, the bonnet was black. 
It was invariably shabby. St. Paul's interdict against 



92 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS, 

women uncovering the head in church may have set the 
fashion. Prudent dread of neuralgias, catarrhs and tooth- 
aches would be likely to perpetuate it. The guide here 
neither evaded nor superadded hs, and we made a grateful 
note of the novelty. She conducted us first to what we 
knew in our reading as the "Chapel of Richard Beau- 
champ." 

" The Beechum Chapel ? yes, sir ! " said our conductress, 
leading the way briskly along the aisle, through oratory 
and chantry up a very worn flight of steps, under a grace- 
ful archway to a pavement of black-and-white lozenge- 
shaped marbles. The Founder sleeps in state second to 
no lord of high degree in the kingdom, if we except 
Henry VII. whose chapel in Westminster Abbey is yet 
more elaborate in design and decoration than that of the 
opulent " Beechums." The Bear and Ragged Staff hold 
their own among the stone sculptures of ceiling and walls, 
The former is studded with shields embossed with the 
arms of Warwick, and of Wai-wick and Beauchamp quar- 
tered. The stalls are of dark brown oak, carved richly- 
blank shields, lions, griffins, muzzled and chained bears 
being the most prominent devices. The "Great Earl," in 
full armor of brass, lies at length upon a gray marble sar- 
cophagus. A brazen hoop-work, in shape exactly resem- 
bling the frame of a Conestoga wagon-top, is built above 
him. Statuettes of copper-gilt mourners, representing 
their surviving kinsmen and kinswomen, occupy fourteen 
niches in the upright sides of the tomb. Sword and dag- 
ger are at his side ; a swan watches at his uncovered head, 
a griffin and bear at his feet ; a casque pillows his head ; 
his hands are raised in prayer. The face is deeply lined 
and marked of feature, the brows seeming to gather frown- 
ingly while we gaze. It is a marvelous effigy. The woman 
looked amazed, Caput disgusted, when we walked around 



KENILWORTH. 93 

it once, gave a minute and a half to respectful study of the 
Earl's face and armor ; smiled involuntarily in the reading 
of how he had "decessed ful cristenly the last day of 
April, the yeare of oure lord god AMCCCCXXXIX."— 
then inquired abruptly: — ^' Where is the tomb of Queen 
Elizabeth's Leicester ? " 

As a general, Leicester was a notorious failure ; in state- 
craft, a bungler ; as a man, he was a transgressor of every 
law, human and divine ; as a conqueror of women's hearts, 
he had no peer in his day, and we cannot withhold from 
him this pitiful meed of honor — if honor it be — when we 
read that "his most sorrowful wife Laetitia, through a 
sense of conjugal love and fidelity, hath put up this monu- 
ment to the best and dearest of husbands.'* 

'^ By Jove !" said Dux, again. 

'' She ought to speak well of him ! " retorted Caput. 
*'He murdered her first husband, and repudiated his 
second wife Douglas Howard (Lady Sheffield) in order to 
espouse Lettice, not to mention the fact that he had tried 
ineffectually about the time of the Kenilworth fete, to rid 
himself of No. 2 by poison. He was a hero of determined 
measures. Witness the trifling episode of Amy Robsart to 
which the Earl is indebted for our visit to-day." 

We stood our ground in calm disdain of the thrust ; 
were not to be diverted from our steadfast contemplation 
of the King of Hearts. That his superb physique was not 
overpraised by contemporaries, the yellow marble bears 
satisfactory evidence, yet the chief charm of his face was 
said to be his eyes. The forehead is lofty ; the head nobly- 
shaped ; the nose aquiline ; the mouth, even under the heavy 
moustache, was, we could see, feminine in mould and 
sweetness. His hands, joined in death, as they seldom 
were in life, in mute prayer upon his breast, are of patri- 
cian beauty. He is clad in full armor, and wears the 



94 I^OITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

orders bestowed upon him by his royal and doating mis- 
tress. He was sadly out of favor with her at the time of 
his death in 1588. She survived him fifteen years. If she 
had turned aside in one of her famous *' progresses " to 
look upon this altar-tomb, would she have smiled, sobbed 
or sworn upon reading that his third countess had written 
him down a model Benedict ? His sorrowful Lsetitia drag- 
ged on the load of life for forty-six years after her Leices- 
ter's decease, and now lies by his side also with uplifted 
praying hands. She is a prim matron, richly bedight 
''with ruff and cuff and farthingales and things." The 
chaste contour and placidity of her features confuse us as 
to her identity with the '' light o' love " who winked at the 
murder that made her the wife of Lady Douglas Howard's 
husband. The exemplary couple are encompassed by a 
high and handsomely wrought iron fence ; canopied by a 
sort of temple-front supported by four Corinthian pillars. 
It is almost unnecessary to remark that the ubiquitous 
Bear and Ragged Staff mounts guard above this. A few 
yards away is the statue of a pretty little boy, well-grown 
for his three years ; his chubby cheeks encircled by a lace- 
frilled cap ; an embroidered vestment reaching to his feet. 
He lies like father and mother, prone on his back, upon a 
flat tombstone. 

''The noble Impe Robert of Dudley," reads the inscrip- 
tion, with a list of other titles too numerous and ponder- 
ous to be jotted down or recollected. The only legitimate 
son of Amy's, Douglas', Elizabeth's, Lettice's — Every- 
woman's Leicester, and because he stood in the way of the 
succession of some forgotten uncle or cousin, poisoned to 
order, by his nurse ! " The pity of it ! " says First thought 
at the sight of the innocent baby-face. Second thought — 
" How well for himself and his kind that his father's and 
mother's son did not mature into manhood ! " 



KENILWORTH. 95 

Leicester left another boy, the son of Lady Douglas, 
whom he cast off after she refused to die of the poison that 
*'left her bald." Warwickshire traditions are rife with 
stories of her and her child who also bore his father's 
name. Miss Strickland adverts to one, still repeated by 
the gossips of Old Warwick, in which the disowned wife, 
with disheveled hair and streaming tears, rocks young 
Robert in her arms, crooning the ballad we mothers have 
often sung without dreaming of its plaintive origin : — 

** Balow my baby, lie still and sleep ! 
It grieves me sair to see thee weep." 

To this Robert his father bequeathed Kenilworth and its 
estates in the same will that denied his legitimacy. The 
heir assumed the title of Earl of Warwick, but ** the crown " 
■ — alias, Elizabeth— laid claim to and repossessed herself of 
castle and lands. 

Thus, the Hospital is the sole remaining ''relict" of the 
man who turned Oueen Bess's wits out of doors, and while 
her madness lasted, procured for himself the titles and hon- 
ors set in array in the Latin epitaph upon his monument. 

In another chapel — a much humbler one, octagonal in 
shape, is the tomb of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. He 
selected the chamber as the one in which he desired to be 
buried, and wrote the epitaph: 

"Fulke Greville, Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Counsellor 
TO King James, and Friend to Sir Philip Sidney.'''* 

Upon the sarcophagus were the rusty helmet, sword and 
other pieces of armor he had worn without fear and with- 
out reproach ; — a record in Old English outweighing with 
righteous and thoughtful people, the fulsome Latinity of 
Leicester's Grecian altar and the labored magnificence of 
the '' Beechum Chapel." 




CHAPTER VIII. 

Oxford, 

MPRIMIS ! we put up at the Mitre Tavern in Ox. 
ford. 

Nota Bene : never to do it again. 

It is an interesting rookery to look at — and to leave. 
Stuffiness and extortion were words that borrowed new and 
pregnant meaning from our sojourn in what we were re- 
commended to try, as *' a chawming old place. Best of 
service and cookery, you know, thoroughly respectable 
and — ah — historic and arntique, and all that, you know ! " 

Dux, who had noted down the recommendation, pro- 
posed at our departure, to add : ** Mem. : Never to stop 
again at a hotel where illuminated texts are hung in every 
bed-room." 

Opposite the bed allotted to me, who am obliged con- 
tinually to stay my fearsome soul upon the wholesome 
promises of daily grace for daily need, upon exhortations 
to be careful for nothing, and with the day's sufficiency of 
evil to cease anxious thought for morrows as rife with 
trouble, — opposite my bed, where my waking eyes must 
meet it, was a red blister-plaster : 

^^ Boast 710 1 thyself of to-morrow, for thoic kno-west not what 
a day may bring forth.'' 

In the adjacent closet, allotted to Prima, the only orna- 
mental object, besides a wash-bowl so huge she had to 



OXFORD. 97 

call in her father to lift and empty it into the tiniest slop- 
jar ever made, was the reminder in brimstone-blues, ** The 
wages of sin is Death ! " One of our collegians was admon- 
ished that the '* wrath of God abideth upon him," and the 
other had a mutilated doctrinal text signifying quite an- 
other thing when read in the proper connection. Caput, 
in his character as Mentor and balance-wheel, checked the 
boys' disposition to detect, in the lavishment of Scriptural 
instruction, a disposition to establish an honest equilibrium 
with the weighty bills. Extras in one direction, they rea- 
soned, should be met by extras in another. 

"All Scripture is profitable," he reminded the jesters. 
** It is only by misuse it can be made, for a moment, to ap- 
pear common, much less, absurd. Therefore^'' emphati- 
cally, '' I object to texts upon hotel walls ! " 

We were not tempted by in-door luxuries to waste in 
sleep or sloth the daylight hours, but gave these to very 
industrious sight-seeing. Yet we came away with appe- 
tites whetted, not satisfied by what we had beheld. The 
very air of the place is redolent of learning and honorable 
antiquity. Each of the twenty colleges composing the 
University had a valid and distinctive claim upon our 
notice. To name the attractions of one — say, Christ 
Church, or Balliol, would be to fill this chapter with a 
catalogue of MSS. books, pictures, dates and titles. It is 
a queer, fascinating, incomparable old city. Few of the 
streets are broad, none straight. The shops are small, 
usually ill-lighted and devoted to the needs and tastes of 
the students. The haberdashers are "gentlemen's fur- 
nishers," the booksellers' windows full .of text-books in all 
known tongues, interspersed by the far-famed Oxford Edi- 
tions of Bibles and Prayer-books. Pastry-cooks are prom- 
inent and many. The colleges are imposing in dimen- 
sions, some magnificent in architecture. University, the 
5 ' 



98 • LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

oldest, is said to have been founded by the Great Alfred 
Restored in 1229. All are so blackened and battered that 
the youngest looks at least a century older than the Ro- 
man Pantheon. Ancient edifices in the drier, hotter air 
of Southern Europe have been worn by the friction of ages. 
The Oxford Colleges are gnawed as by iron teeth. *' Worm- 
eaten," is the first epithet that comes to the tongue at sight 
of them. From cornice, walls and sculptures, the stone 
has been picked away, a grain at a time, until the surface 
is honeycombed, and to the inexperienced eye, disintegra- 
tion of the whole seems inevitable. The lugubrious effect 
of age and seeming dilapidation is sensibly relieved by the 
reaches of turf, often bordered by gay flowers, forming the 
quadrangles, or court-yards, enclosed by the buildings. 

The quadrangle of Christ Church College was laid out 
by Cardinal Wolsey, the founder and patron. It is almost 
square, measuring 264 feet by 261. *' Great Tom," the big- 
gest bell in England — the custodian says, in the world, — 
hangs in the cupola over the gateway. It weighs 17,000 
pounds, and at ten minutes past nine p.m. strikes one 
hundred and ten times, the number of students " on the 
foundation." The pride of this college is the immense 
refectory, or dining-hall. The ceiling, fifty feet in height, 
is of solid oak elaborately carved, with graceful pendants, 
also elegantly wrought. Among the decorations of this 
roof are the armorial bearings and badges of Henry VIII. 
and Wolsey. Two rows, a hundred feet in length, of por- 
traits of renowned patrons, graduates and professors of 
Oxford are set high upon the side-walls. At the upper 
end of the hall hangs Holbein's full-length portrait of 
Henry VIII. The swinish eyes, pendulous cheeks, pursed- 
up mouth and double chin would be easily caught by any 
caricaturist, and are as familiar to us as the jaunty set of 
his flat cap upon the side of his head^ 



OXFORD. 99 

Holbein was a courtier, likewise an artist, who never 
stooped to caricature. This, the most celebrated likeness 
of his master, was said to be true to life, yet so ingeniously 
flattered as to find favor in the sight of the original. Hol- 
bein was a master of this species of delicate homage where 
the rank of the subject made the exercise of it politic. He 
practised the accomplishment once too often when he 
painted the miniature of Anne of Cleves. Keeping these 
things in mind, we saw a bulky trunk capped by the head 
I have described, one short arm akimbo, the hand resting 
on his sword-belt, the feet planted far apart to maintain 
the balance of the bloated column and display the legs he 
never wearied of praising and stroking. He wears a laced 
doublet and trunk-hose ; a short cloak, lined with ermine, 
falls back from his shoulders. The portrait-galleries of 
nations may be safely challenged to furnish a parallel in 
bestiality and swagger with this figure. Yet the widow of 
a good man, herself a refined and pious gentlewoman, be- 
came without coercion, his sixth queen, and colored with 
pleasure when, in the view of the court, he paid her the 
distinguished compliment of laying his ulcerous leg across 
her lap ! Such reminiscences are not sovereign cures for 
Republicanism. 

On one side of Henry hangs the daughter who proved 
her inheritance of his coarse nature and callous sensibili« 
ties, by vaunting her relationship to him who had dis- 
graced and murdered her mother, and declared herself, by 
act of Parliament, illegitimate. Much is made in Eliza- 
beth's portraits of her ruff and tower of red hair, of her 
satin robe " set all over with aglets of two sorts," of ''pearl- 
work and tassels of gold," of ''costly lace and knotted 
buttons," and very little of the pale, high-nosed face. Her 
eyes are small and black ; her mouth has the "purse" of 
her father's, her features are expressionless. At the other 



100 • LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

hand of King Henry is the butcher's son, created by him 
Lord Cardinal, cozened, in a playfully rapacious humor, 
out of Hampton Palace, and cast off like a vile slug from 
the royal hand when he had had his day and served his 
monarch's ends. Wolsey's portraits are always taken in 
profile, to conceal the cast in the eye, which was his thorn 
in the flesh. It is a triumvirate that may well chain feet, 
eyes, and thought for a much longer time than we could 
spare for the whole college. 

Across this end of the room runs a platform, raised a 
foot or two from the hall floor. A table, surrounded by 
chairs, is upon it. Here dine the titled students of Christ 
Church College (established by the butcher's boy !) — the 
elite who sport the proverbial *' tufts " upon their Oxford 
caps. Privileged *' dons " preside at their meals, and Bluff 
King Hal swaggers in such divinity as doth hedge in a king 
— and his nobles — over their heads. The gentlemen-com- 
moners are so fortunate as to sit nearest this hallowed dais, 
although upon the lower level of the refectory. The 
common^^/ drink small-beer from pewter tankards in the 
draughts and dimness (social) of the end nearest the door. 

Lex's handsome face was a study when the fitness and 
beauty of class distinctions in the halls of learning was 
made patent to him by the civil guide. By the way, he 
wore a student's gown, and was, we surmised, a servitor of 
the college. 

*' How much light these entertaining items cast upon 
quotations we have heard, all our lives, without compre- 
hending," said the audacious youth, eying the informant 
with ingenuous admiration. " ' High life and below stairs ! ' 
* Briton's sons shall ne'er be slaves ! ' ' Free-born Eng- 
lishmen ' — and the rest of it ! There's nothing else like 
an old-world education, after all, for adjusting society. 
Under professors like the Tudors and Stuarts, of course ! 



OXFORD. lOI 

Why, do you know, we ignoramuses over the water would 
set Bright and Gladstone at the same table with the most 
empty-pated lord of the lot, and never suspect that we 
were insulting one of them ? " 

Caput pulled him away. 

" You rascal ! " he said, as we followed the servitor to the 
kitchen. '* How dare you make fun of the man to his face ? " 

**He never guessed it," replied the other coolly. '* It 
takes a drill and a blast of powder to get a joke into an 
English skull." 

The kitchen is a vast vault, planned also by Wolsey, 
whose antecedents should have made him an authority in 
the culinary kingdom in an era when loins were knighted 
and entrees an unknown quantity in the composition of 
good men's feasts. The high priest of the savory myste- 
ries met us upon the threshold, the grandest specimen, 
physically, of a man we saw abroad. Herculean in stature 
and girth, he had a noble head and face, was straight as a 
Norway pine, and was robed in a voluminous white bib- 
apron. His voice was singularly deep and musical, his 
carriage majestic. I wish I could add that he was as con- 
versant with the natural history and rights of the letter H 
as with the details of his profession and the story of his 
realm from 1520 downward. He exhibited the Brobding- 
nagian gridiron used in the time of James I., on which an 
hundred steaks could be broiled at one and the same time, 
and enlarged upon the improvements that had superseded 
the rusty bars and smoky jacks, kept now as curiosities. 
In one pantry was a vast vessel of ripe apricots, ready- 
sugared for jam ; a huge pasty, hot and fragrant from the 
oven, stood upon a dresser, encircled by a cohort of tarts. 

'* H'out h'of term-time we 'ave comparatively little to 
do," said the splendid giant. '' Therefore I 'ave given 
most h'of my h'employees a vacation. But there h'are a 



102 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

few h'undergraduates and a tutor h'or two 'ere still, and '* 
— apologetically for mortal frailty — ''the h'inner man, 
h'even h'of scholars must be h'entertained. 'Ence these " 
— waving a mighty arm toward the pastry. 

He pleased us prodigiously, even to the sublime gracious- 
ness with which he accepted a douceur at parting. We 
turned at the end of the passage to look at him — a white- 
robed Colossus, in the dusky arch of the kitchen doorway. 
The light from a window touched his hoary hair and the 
jet-black brows that darkened the full, serious eyes. He 
was gazing after us, too, and bowed gravely without chang- 
ing his place. 

"Are there photographs of hi?7i for sale?" asked we of 
our guide. " Surely he is one of the college lions ? " 

" I beg your pardon ! " 

We directed his attention to the statuesque Anak. 

"Oh! he is the cook!" with never a gleam of amuse- 
ment or surprise. 

"Artistically considered," pursued Prima, with another 
lingering look, "he is magnificent." 

This time the black-gown was slightly — never so slightly, 
bewildered. 

" He is the cook," he said. 

*' 'Twas throwing words away, for still 
The little man would have his will. 
And answered — * 'Tis the cook !'" 

parodied Dux. "Wordsworth was an Englishman and 
' knew how it was himself.' " 

We spent four hours in the Bodleian Library, Museum, 
and Picture Gallery, leaving them then reluctantly. It 
was " realizing our history " in earnest to see the portrait 
of William Prynne, carefully executed, even to Archbishop 
Laud's scarlet ear-mark. The clipped organ is turned to 



OXFORD. 103 

the spectator ostentatiously, one fancies, until he bethinks 
himself that the uncompromising Puritan received the lov- 
ing admonition of Church and State in both ears, and 
upon separate occasions. The miniatures of James III. 
and his wife are here given an honorable position. Some 
years since the words, ''The Pretender," were scratched 
by an unknown Jacobite from the gilded frame of the un- 
crowned king's picture. The custodian pointed out the 
erasure with a smile indulgent of the harmless, if petulant 
freak. It is odd who do such things, and when, so vigi- 
lant is the watch kept over visitors. Three of the delicate 
fingers are gone from the hands of Marie Stuart in West- 
minster Abbey, and, if I remember aright, as many from the 
effigy of Elizabeth in the same place. 

We paused long at one small faded portrait, far inferior 
in artistic merit to those about it — the first picture we had 
seen of Lady Jane Grey. She has a sickly, chalky com- 
plexion that might match an American school-girl's. This 
may have been caused by the severity of her home disci- 
pline and Master Roger Ascham's much Latin and more 
Greek. She toiled for him cheerfully, she says, ** since he 
was the first person who ever spake kindly to her." She 
was the mistress of five languages and a frightful number of 
arts and sciences, and married a sour-tempered man, chosen 
by her father and his, when she was seventeen years old. 
The lineaments are unformed and redeemed from plain- 
ness by large brown eyes. They have an appealing, hunted 
look that was not all in our fancy. A " slip of a girl " 
compassionate mothers would name her ; frightened at 
life, or what it was made to be to her by her natural guar- 
dians. 

Across the gallery are two portraits of Marie Stuart, one 
of which was painted over the other upon the same can- 
vas. This was discovered by an artist, who then obtained 



104 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

permission from the owners to copy and erase the upper 
painting. He succeeded in both tasks. The outermost 
portrait wears a projecting headdress, all buckram, lace, 
and pearls, and a more ornate robe than the other. A 
casual glance would incline one to the belief that the faces 
are likewise dissimilar, but examination shows that they 
are alike in line and color, the difference in expression 
being the work of the tawdry coiffure. The lower like- 
ness is so lovely in its thoughtful sweetness as to kindle 
indignation with astonishment that it should have been so 
foolishly disfigured. The story is a strange one, but true. 

We recognized Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester's picture, 
from its resemblance to the effigy upon his tomb, and liked 
it less than that. The opened eyes are fine in shape and 
color, but sleepy and sinister, the complexion more san- 
guine than suits a carpet-knight. There is more of the 
hunting-squire than the polished courtier in it. Close by 
is the pleasing face of the royal coquette's later favorite, 
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Another profile of 
Wolsey is not far off. A nobler trio are Erasmus, Hugo 
Grotius and Thomas Cranmer pendent upon the same side 
of the gallery. 

I once read in a provincial journal a burlesque list of 
the curiosities in Barnum's Museum, One item was, '*a 
cup of cream from the milky way — slightly curdled." An- 
other — ** a block from the marble hall the Bohemian girl 
dreamed she dwelt in." The nonsense recurred to me 
when we bent over a glass containing Guy Fawkes' lan- 
tern, " slightly" rusted. In fact, it is riddled by rust, and 
so far as apparent antiquity goes, might have belonged to 
Diogenes. The various parts — candle-holder, iron cylin- 
der and cover, lie apart, and with them certificates to the 
genuineness of the relic. There is the original letter of 
warning to Lord Mounteagle not to go to the House at 



OXFORD. lOS 

the opening of Parliament, " since God and man have 
conspired to punish the wickedness of the times." ^' Par- 
liament shall receive a terrible blow and yet shall not see 
w^ho hurt them," is the sentence that led to the search in 
the cellar and the capture of Fawkes. 

Queen Elizabeth's fruit-plates are upon exhibition here. 
They are very like the little wooden plaques we now paint 
for card-receivers and hang about our rooms. The edges 
are carved and painted, and in the centre of each are four 
lines of rhyme, usually a caustic fling at matrimony and 
married people. 

The wealth of the Bodleian Library consists in its collec- 
tion of valuable old books and MSS. In the number and 
rarity of the latter it disputes the palm with the British 
Museum. I should not know where to stop were I to 
begin the enumeration of treasures over which we hung in 
breathless delight, each one brought forward seeming more 
wonderful than the last. The illuminated volumes, — 
written and painted upon such parchment as one must see 
to believe in, so fine is its texture and so clear the page, — 
are enough to make a bibliomaniac of the soberest book- 
lover. A thousand years have not sufficed to dim tints and 
gilding. Queen Elizabeth, as Princess, '^did" Solomon's 
Proverbs upon vellum in letters of various styles, all dain- 
tily neat. In looking at her Latin exercises and counting 
up Lady Jane Grey's acquirements, we cease to boast of 
the superior educational advantages of the girl of the 
period. It is experiences such as were ours that morning 
in the Bodleian Library and during our three days in Ox- 
ford that are pin-pricks to the balloon of national and in- 
tellectual conceit, not the survey of foreign governments 
and the study of foreign laws and manner. If the patient 
and candid sight-seer do not come home a humbler and a 
wiser man, he had best never stir again beyond the cor- 
5* 



T06 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

porate limits of his own little Utica, and pursue conten- 
tedly the role of the marble in a peck-measure. 

Before seeing the *' Martyrs' Monument," we went to 
St. Mary's Church in which Cranmer recanted his recanta- 
tion. The places of pulpit and reading-desk have been 
changed since the Archbishop was brought forth from 
prison and bidden by Dr. Cole, an eminent Oxford divine, 
make public confession of his faith before the waiting con- 
gregation. The church was packed with soldiers, ecclesi- 
astics and the populace. All had heard that the deposed 
prelate had been persuaded by argument and soothing 
wiles and the cruel bondage of the fear of death to return 
to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Cole had said 
mass and preached the sermon. 

**Dr. Cranmer will now read his confession," he said 
and sat down. 

*'I will make profession of my faith," said Cranmer, 
*' and with a good will, too ! " 

We saw the site of the old pulpit in which he arose in 
saying this ; the walls that had given back the tones of a 
voice that trembled no longer as he proclaimed his late 
recantation null and void, "inasmuch as he had been 
wrought upon by the fear of burning to sign them. He 
believed in the Bible and all the doctrines taught there- 
in which he had wickedly renounced. As for the Pope, 
he did refuse him and denounce him as the enemy of 
Heaven." 

"Smite him upon the mouth; and take him away!" 
roared Cole. 

We would presently see where he was chained to the 
stake and helped tear off his upper garments, as fearing he 
might again grow cowardly before the burning began. 
From a different motive, — namely, the dread that his bald 
head and silvery beard might move the people to rescue, 



OXFORD. 107 

the Lord Overseer of the butchery ordered the firemen to 
make haste. '^ The unworthy hand" was burned first. His 
heart wq,s left whole in the ashes. 

" That was the Oxford spirit, three hundred and twenty 
years ago !" mused Caput, aloud. ''Within fifty years, 
John Henry Newman, — now a Cardinal — was incumbent 
of St. Mary's." 

" Yes, sir," responded the pew-opener (with a bonnet 
on,) who showed the church. ''He was one of the first 
Puseyites." 

"I know!" turning again toward the site of the old 
pulpit. 

A small square of marble, no bigger than a tile, let into 
the chancel floor, records that in a vault beneath lies 
"Amy Robsart, first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, Earl 
of Leicester." Her remains were brought hither from 
Cumnor Hall, which was but three miles from Oxford, 
and decently interred in a brick grave under the church. 
Other monument than this insignificant morsel of stone 
she has none. 

The Martyrs' Memorial is a handsome Gothic structure 
of magnesian limestone, hexagonal and three-storied, ris- 
ing into a pinnacle surmounted by a cross. It is in a 
conspicuous quarter of the city, in the centre of an open 
square. In arched niches, facing different ways, are 
Cranmer, in his prelatical robes, Ridley, and Latimer. 

"This place hath long groaned for me!" said Lati- 
mer, passing through Smithfield, on his way to the tower 
after his arrest. 

But they brought him to Oxford to die. 

We checked the carriage and alighted opposite Balliol 
College. The street is closely built up on both sides, and 
in the middle, upon one of the paving-stones, is cut a 
deep cross. This is the true Martyrs' Memorial. There, 



I08 ' LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Ridley and Latimer ''lighted such a candle by the grace 
of God as shall never be put out." The much-abused 
phrase, "baptism of fire," grows sublime when we read 
that Latimer was ** seen to make motions with his hands 
as if washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged 
face with them." 

Said an American clergyman — and inferentially, a de- 
fender of the Faith — *' I have no sympathy with those old 
martyrs. The most charitable of us must confess that 
they were frightfully and disgustingly obstinate ! " 

We may forgive them for failing to win the approbation 
of latter-day sentimentalists wiien we reflect that but for 
this, their unamiable idiosyncrasy, neither Protestant Eng- 
land nor Protestant America would to-day exist, even in 
name. Not very long since, excavations under the side- 
walk nearest to the cross-mark in this street revealed the 
existence here — as a similar accident had in front of St. 
Bartholomew-the-Great, in London — of a thick stratum 
of ashes. " Human ashes mixed with wood," says the re- 
port of the discovery printed by an Antiquarian Society — 
''establishing beyond question that this was where the 
public burnings were held." The inhumanity of sweeping 
such ashes into a heap by the wayside, as one might pile 
the refuse of a smelting-furnace, is almost as revolting 
to most people as the disgusting obstinacy of the con- 
sumed heretics. We saw another official record, of an 
earlier date, relative to this locality, — the bills sent by the 
Sheriff of Oxford to the Queen, after two "public burn- 
ings." One headed — " To burn Latimer and Ridley'' has 
seven items, including "wood-fagots, furze-fagots, chains, 
and staples," accumulating into a total of ^i, 5s. pd. 
"71? burn Cranmer" was a cheaper operation. "Furze 
and wood-fagots," the carriage of these, and " 2 laborers," 
cost but "i2s. 8d." Ridley and Latimer suffered for 



OXFORD. 109 

their obstinacy, October 16, 1555 ; Cranmer in March of 
the next year. 

The walks and drives in and about Oxford are exceed- 
ingly beautiful. The ''Broad Walk," in Christ Church 
Meadows, deserves the eulogiums lavished upon it by 
tongue and pen. The interlacing tracery of the elms, 
arched above the smooth, wide avenue ; the glimpses to 
right and left of " sweet fields in living green ; " clumps 
of superb oaks and pretty ''pleasances ;" the dark -gray 
towers, domes and spires of the city, and the ivied wails 
of private and public gardens ; the Isis winding beneath 
willows and between meadows, and dotted, although it 
was the long vacation, with gliding boats, — all this, viewed 
in the clear, tender light of the "Queen's weather" that 
still followed us on our journeyings, made up a picture 
we shall carry with us while memory holds dear and pleas- 
ant things. 

When we go abroad again — (how often and easily the 
words slip from our lips ! ) we mean to give three weeks, 
instead of as many days, to Oxford. 

'' Honor bright, now ! " said Caput, settling into his 
place, with the rest of us, in the railway carriage, after 
the last look from the windows upon the receding scene ; 
— "when you say 'Oxford' do you think first of Alfred 
the Great ; of Coeur de Lion, who was born there ; of Wil- 
liam the Conqueror, who had a tough battle to win it ; of 
Cardinal Wolsey — or of Tom Brown ? " 

"That reminds me !" said Prima, serenely ignoring the 
query her elders laughingly declined to answer, — "we 
must get some sandwiches at Rugby. Everybody does." 

We did — all leaving the train to peep into the " Refresh- 
ment Room of Mugby Junction," and quoting, sotfo voce, 
from the sketch which, it is affirmed, has made this, in 
very truth, what Dickens wrote it down ironically — "the 



no LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Model Establishment" of the line. ^'The Boy" has dis- 
appeared, or grown up. Mrs. Sniff, — "the one with the 
small waist buckled in tight in front, and with the lace 
cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the 
counter and stands a-smoothing while the Public foams," 
— has been supplanted by a tidy dame, cherry-cheeked 
and smiling. She filled our order with polite despatch, 
and, in her corps of willing assistants one searches uselessly 
for the "disdaineous females and ferocious old woman," 
objurgated by the enraged foreigner ; as vainly in the 
array of tempting edibles upon the counter for "stale pas- 
try and sawdust sangwiches." We had our railway car- 
riage to ourselves, and, carrying our parcels thither, pre- 
pared to make merry. 

" I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients 
and formation of the British Refreshment Sangwich," 
began Prima, who knows Dickens better than she does 
the Catechism. 

The sandwich of Rugby, — as revised — is p.ut up by the 
half-dozen in neat white boxes, tied with ribbons, like 
choice confections. The ingredients are sweet, white 
bread, and juicy tongue or ham. The pastry is fresh and 
flaky, the cakes delicate and toothsome. We kept our 
sandwich-boxes as souvenirs. 

We did not catch a sight of Banbury Cross, or of the 
young woman with bells on her toes who cantered through 
our nursery rhyme to that mythical goal. But we did 
supplement our Mugby Lunch by Banbury cakes, an indi- 
gestible and palatable compound. 




CHAPTER IX. 
Sky 'larks and' Stoke-Pogis. 

HE only really hot weather we felt in the British 
Isles fell to our lot at Brighton. The fashion- 
able world was ''up in London." The metropolis 
is always ''up," go where you will. "The season" takes 
in July, then everybody stays in the country until after 
Christmas, usually until April. Benighted Americans ex- 
claim at the unreason of this arrangement, and are told — 
"It is customary." 

"But you lose the glory of Spring and Summer; and 
muddy {Anglice, ' dirty ') roads and wintry storms must 
be a serious drawback to country pleasures. We think 
the American plan more sensible and comfortable." 

"It is not customary with us." 

With the Average Briton, and with multitudes who are 
above the average in intelligence and breeding, "custom" 
is an end of all controversy. 

For one week of the two we spent in Brighton, it was 
unequivocally hot. The sea was a burnished mirror be- 
tween the early morning and evening hours. The Parade 
and the Links were deserted ; the donkey-boys and peri- 
patetic minstrels retired discouraged from the sultry streets. 
We had a pleasant suite of rooms upon Regency Square 
and kept tolerably comfortable by lowering the awning of 
the front balcony and opening all the inner doors and 



112 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

windows to invite the breeze. Our landlord had been a 
butler in Lord Somebody's family for twenty-eight years ; 
had married the housekeeper, and with their joint savings 
and legacies leased the '^ four-story brick," No. 60 Regency 
Square, and kept a first-class lodging-house. Every morn- 
ing, at nine o'clock, he appeared with slate and pencil for 
orders for the day. " Breakfast," '* Luncheon," " Dinner" 
were written above as many spaces, and beneath each I 
made out a bill-of-fare. Meals were served to the minute 
in the back-parlor and the folding-doors, opened by his 
august hand, revealed him in black coat and white neck- 
tie, ready to wait at table. Cookery and service were ex- 
cellent ; the rooms handsomely furnished, including na- 
pery, china, silver, and gas. We paid as much as we would 
have done at a hotel, but were infinitely more contented, 
having the privacy and many of the comforts of a real home. 

Our worthy landlord remonstrated energetically at sight 
of the open windows ; protested against the draughts and 
our practice of drawing reading-chairs and lounges into 
the cooling currents. 

" The wind is east, sir ! " he said to Caput, almost with 
tears, — "and when it sets in that quarter, draughts are 
deadly." 

We laughed, thanked him and declared that we were 
used to east winds, and continued to seek the breeziest 
places until every one of us was seized with influenza viler 
than any that ever afflicted us in the middle of a Northern 
winter. Upon Caput, the most robust of the party, it 
settled most grievously. The dregs" were an attack of 
bronchitis that defied all remedies for a month, then sent 
him back to the Continent for cure. I mention this in- 
stance of over-confidence in American constitutions and 
ignorance of the English climate as a warning to others as 
rash and unlearned. 



SKY-LARKS AND STOKE-POGIS. • II3 

The wind stayed in the east all the time we were in 
Brighton and the sun's ardor did not abate. Our host 
had a good library, — a rarity in a lodging-house, and we 
''lazed" away noon-tides, book or fancy-work in hand. 
We had morning drives into the country and evening 
rambles in the Pavilion Park, and out upon the splendid 
pier where the band played until ten o'clock, always con- 
cluding, as do all British bands, the world around, with 
"God save the Queen." Boy, attended by the devoted 
Invaluable, divided the day between donkey-rides, playing 
in the sand, — getting wet through regularly twice per diem, 
by an in-rolling wave, — and the Aquarium. The latter 
resort was much affected by us all. It is of itself worth 
far more than the trouble and cost of a trip from London 
to Brighton and back. 

The restfulness, — the indolence, if you will have it so — 
of that sojourn in a place where there were few ''sights," 
and when it was too warm to make a business of visiting 
such as there were, was a salutary break, — barring the in- 
fluenza — in our tour. Perhaps our mental digestions are 
feebler or slower than those of the majority of traveling 
Americans. But it was a positive necessity for us to be 
quiet, now and then, for a week or a month, that the work 
of assimilation and nourishment might progress safely and 
healthfully. After a score of attempts to bolt an art- 
gallery, a museum, a cathedral, or a city at one meal, and 
to follow this up by rapidly successive surfeits, we learned 
wisdom from the dyspeptic horrors that ensued, and re- 
signed the experiment to others. Nor did we squander 
time and strength upon a thing to which we were indiffer- 
ent, merely because Murray or Baedeker prescribed it, or 
through fear of that social nuisance, the Thorough Trav- 
eler. We cultivated a fine obtuseness to the attacks of 
this personage and never lost an hour's sleep for his assur- 



114 ,LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ance that the one thing worth seeing in Munich was the 
faience in a tumbling-down palace only known to virtu- 
osos "who understood the ropes," and which we, being 
simple folk unversed in rope-pulling, had not beheld ; or 
that he who omitted to walk the entire length of the Liver- 
pool Docks, or to see the Giant's Causeway by moonlight, 
or to go into the Blue Grotto, might better have stayed at 
home and given his ticket and letter-of-credit to a more 
appreciative voyager. 

Our fortnight at Brighton, then, was one of our resting- 
spells, and one morning, after a night-shower had fresh- 
ened the atmosphere, and the wind blew steadily but not 
too strongly from the sea, we drove, en famille^ to the 
Downs and the Devil's Dyke, a deep ravine cleaving the 
Downs into two hills. The devil's name is a pretty sure 
guarantee of the picturesque or awful in scenery, — a sort 
of trade-mark. Our course was through the open, breezy 
country ; the road, fringed and frilled with milk-white 
daisies and scarlet poppies, overlooking the ocean on one 
side, bounded upon the other by corn-fields and verdant 
downs stretching up and afar into the hilly horizon. The 
evenness of the grass upon these rolling heights, and of 
the growth of wheat and oats was remarkable, betokening 
uniformity of fertility and culture unknown in our coun- 
try. Wheat, oats, barley— all bearded cereals— are '' corn " 
abroad, maize being little known. 

Leaving the waggonette at the hotel on the top of the 
Downs, and turning a deaf ear to the charming of the pho- 
tographer, whose camera and black cloth were already 
afield, early in the day as it was, we w^alked on the ridge 
for an hour. We trod the springy turf as upon a flowery 
carpet ; the air was balm and cordial ; from our height 
we surveyed five of the richest counties of England, seem- 
ing to be spread upon a plane surface, the distance level- 



SKY-LARKS AND STOKE-POGIS. II5 

ing minor inequalities. Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire 
were a mottled map below our plateau, a string of hamlets 
marking highways and knotting up, once in a while, into 
a larger settlement wound about a church. Some of these 
w^ere very primitive sanctuaries, with thatched roofs and 
towers, and the straw gables of the cottages were like so 
many embrowned hay-ricks. 

Then and there, our feet deep in wild thyme and a hun- 
dred unknown blossoming grasses, the pastoral panorama 
unrolled for our vision, from the deep blue sea-line to the 
faint boundary of the far-off hills, the scented breezes fill- 
ing lungs that panted to inhale yet larger draughts of their 
cool spiciness — we first heard the larks sing ! We had 
been sceptical about the sky-lark. And since hearing the 
musical ''jug-jug" and broken cadenzas of Italian nightin- 
gales, and deciding that the mocking-bird would be a tri- 
umphantly-successful rival could he be induced to give 
moonlight concerts, we had waxed yet more contemptuous 
of the bird who builds upon the ground, yet is fabled to 
sing at heaven's gate. We had seen imported larks, brown, 
spiritless things, pecking in a home-sickly way at a bit of 
turf in the corner of their cage, and emitting an infrequent 
*' tweet." Our hedge-sparrow is a comelier and more in- 
teresting bird, and, for all we could see, might sing as 
well, if he would but apply his mind to the study of the 
sustained warble. 

..Our dear friend, Dr. V , of Rome, once gave me a 

description of the serenades of the nightingales about his 
summer home on the Albanian Hills, so exquisite in word- 
ing, so pulsing with natural poetry as to transcend the 
song of any Philomel we ever listened to, I wished for 
him on the Downs that fervid July morning. I wish for 
his facile pen the more now when I w^ould tell, and cannot, 
how the sky-larks sang and with what emotions we heark- 



Il6 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ened to them. They arose, not singly or in pairs, but by 
the score, from the expanse of enameled turf, mounting 
straight and slowly heavenward. Their notes blended in 
the upper air into a vibrating ecstasy of music. Pure as 
the odor of the thyme, free as the rush of the sea-air over 
the heights, warble and trill floated dowm to us as they 
soared, always directly up, up, until literally invisible to 
the naked eye. I brought the field-glass to bear upon two 
I had thus lost, and saw them sporting in the ether like 
butterflies, springing and sinking, tossing over and over 
upon the waves of their own melody, and, all the while, 
the lower air in which we stood was thrilling as clearly 
and deliciously with rapturous rivulets of sound as when 
they were scarce twenty feet above the earth. 

Our last memory of Oxford is a landscape — in drawing, 
graphic and clear as a Millais, rich and mellow as a Claude 
in coloring. We brought away both picture and poem 
from Brighton Downs. 

It was still summer-time, but summer with a presage of 
autumn in russet fields and shortening twilights, when we 
left the railway train at Slough, a station near Windsor 
Castle, and took a carriage for Stoke-Pogis. This, the 
'' Country Church-yard " of Thomas Gray, is but two and 
a half miles from the railway, and is gained by a good road 
winding between hedge-rows and coppices, with frequent 
views of quiet country homes. The flag flaunting from 
the highest tower of Windsor w^as seldom out of sight on 
the route. 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave." 

It was impossible to abstain from repeating the couplet, 
inevitable that it should recur to us, a majestic refrain, at 
each glimpse of the royal standard. We stopped in the 



SKY-LARKS AND STOKE-POGIS. ll'J 

broad shadow of a clump of oaks at the side of the road ; 
passed through a turn-stile and followed a worn foot-path 
across the fields. The glimmer of a pale, graceful spire 
among the trees was our guide. About sixty yards beyond 
the stile is an oblong monument of granite, surmounted by 
a sarcophagus with steeply-slanting sides and a gabled 
cover. The paneled sides of the base are covered with 
selections from Gray's poems. The turf slopes from this 
into a shallow moat, on the outer bank of w^hich reclined 
two boys. They were well-favored fellows, dressed in 
well-made jackets and trousers, and had, altogether, the 
air of gentlemen's sons. While one copied into a blank 
book the inscription on the side nearest him, his companion 
was at work upon a tolerable sketch of the monument. 

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid 
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," 

read Caput from the monument. Then, glancing at the 
sarcophagus: "Can Gray himself be buried here? I 
thought his grave was in the church-yard ? " 

The boys wrote and sketched on, deaf and dumb. Caput 
approached the elder, who may have been fifteen years old. 

*' I beg your pardon ! but can you tell me if this is the 
burial-place of the poet Gray ? " 

The lads looked at each other. 

" Gray ? " said one — 

" Poet ? " the other. 

Then — this is solemn truth, dear Reader ! — both uttered, 
with the unison and monotony of a church-response — *^ I 
really carn't say ! " 

We pursued the little foot-path to the church. There 
would surely be some record there to satisfy our query. 



Il8 LOITERIXGS IX PLEASANT PATHS. 

Stones should have tongues upon the soil that produces 
the Average Briton. " The summer's late repentant smile " 
cast a pensive beauty over the countrj'-side, made of the 
sequestered church-yard a home fair to see and to be de- 
sired when the "inevitable hour" should come. The wall 
has a luxuriant coping of ivy throughout its length. Pre- 
hensile streamers have anchored in the turf below and 
bound the graves with green withes. The i\y-mantle of 
the old square tower leaves not a stone visible except 
where it has been cut away from the window of the belfry. 
A new steeple rises out of the green mass. A modest and 
symmetrical pinnacle, but one that displeases prejudice, if 
not just taste, and which is as yet shunned by the ivy, that 
congener of honorable antiquity. It clings nowhere more 
lovingly than to the double gable, under the oriel window 
of which is the poet's grave. This is a brick parallelogram 
covered by a marble slab. Gray's mother is buried with 
him. A tablet in the church-wall tells us in which narrow 
cell he sleeps. 

Just across the central alley the sexton was opening an 
old grave, probably that it might receive another tenant, 
possibly to remove the remains to another cemetery. A 
gentleman in clerical dress stood near, with two young girls. 
The grave-digger and his assistant completed the group. 
Caput applied to the cler\'gman, rightly supposing him to 
be the parish rector, for permission to gather some of the 
pink thyme and grasses from the base of the brick tomb. 
During the minute occupied by courteous question and 
reply, the contents of the grave were exposed to view. 

"A 'mouldering heap' of dust!" said Caput, coming 
back to us. " Here and there a crumbling bone. A mat 
of human hair. Not even the semblance of human shape. 
That is what mortality means. Gray may have seen the 
like in this very place." 



SKY-LARKS AND STOKE-POGIS. IIQ 

We picked buttercups, clover, and thyme, some blades 
of grass and sprigs of moss, that had their roots in the 
fissures of the bricks, and as silently quitted the vicinage 
of the open pit. Every step furnished proof of the fidel- 
ity to nature of the imperishable idyl. It was an impossi- 
bility — or so we then believed — that it could have been 
written elsewhere than in that " church-yard." The move- 
less arabesques of the rugged elm-boughs slept upon the 
ridged earth at our left ; the yew-tree blackened a corner 
at the right. The "upland lawn" was bathed in sun- 
shine ; the 

"nodding beech 
That -v^Tcathes its old fantastic roots so high," 

at whose foot the recluse stretched his listless length at 
noontide, still leaned over the brook. We stayed our 
lingering steps to listen to its babbling, and point out the 
wood and the " 'customed hill." 

We rode back to the station by way of the hamlet, into 
whose uncouth name genius has breathed music, and saw 
Gray's home. It is a plain, substantial dwelling, little 
better than a farm-house. In the garden is a summer- 
house, in which, it is said, he was fond of sitting while he 
wrote and read. Constitutionally shy, and of exceeding 
delicacy of nerve and taste, his thoughtfulness deepened 
by habitual ill-health, — one comprehends, in seeing Stoke- 
Pogis, why he should have preferred it to any other abode, 
yet how, in this seclusion, gravity and dreaming should 
have become a gentle melancholy tingeing every line we 
have from his pen. As, when apostrophizing Eton : — 

** Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shades ! 
Ah, fields, beloved in vain ! 
Where once my careless childhood strayed, 
A stranger yet to pahi.''^ 



120 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

This continual guest, Pain, engendered an indolent 
habit of body. His ideal Heaven was 'Svhere one might 
lie on the sofa all day and read a novel," unstung by con- 
science or the contempt of his kind. 

"William Penn was born at Stoke-Pogis ! " I remem- 
bered, aloud and abruptly. 

Caput's eyes were upon the fast-vanishing spire : 

'^ The Elegy — in which I defy any master of English to 
find a misapplied word — was written twenty times before 
it was printed," he observed sententiously. 

'•''Papa!'' from the young lady on the back seat of the 
carriage — " Now, I thought it was an impromptu " 

" Dashed off upon the backs of a pocketful of letters, 
between daylight and dark, a flat grave-stone for a desk, 
— and published in the next morning's issue of the *' Stoke- 
Pogis Banner of Light ! " finished the senior, banteringly. 

But there is a lesson, with a moral, in the brief dia- 
logue. 




CHAPTER X. 

Our English Cousins, 

^ E had seen the Carnevale at Rome, and the wild 
confusion of the moccoletfi, which is its finale ; 
festas, in Venice, Milan, and almost every other 
Italian town where we had stayed overnight. There are 
more festas than working-days in that laughter-loving 
land. In Paris we had witnessed illuminations, and a 
royal funeral, or of such shreds of royalty as appertained 
unto the dead King of Hanover, — the Prince of Wales, 
very red of face in the broiling sun, officiating as chief 
mourner in his mother's absence. In Geneva we had 
made merry over the extravaganzas of New Year's Day, 
and the comicalities of patriotism that rioted in the Esca- 
lade. We were an fait to the beery and musical glories of 
the German /^'j-/. We would see and be in the thick of a 
British holiday. What better opportunity could we have 
than was offered by the placards scattered broadcast in 
the streets, and pasted upon the '' hoardings" of Brigh- 
ton, announcing a mammoth concert in the Crystal Pal- 
ace at Sydenham ; a general muster of Temperance Socie- 
ties ; an awarding of prizes to competitive brass bands, 
and a prospective convocation of 100,000 souls from every 
town and shire within a radius of fifty miles ? Such facili- 
ties for beholding that overgrown monster, the British 
Public, in his Sunday clothes and best humor— might not 
occur again— for us— in a half-century. 



122 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

True, the weather was warm, but the Palace and grounds 
were spacious. The musical entertainment was not likely 
to be of the classic order, but it would be something worth 
the hearing and the telling, — the promised chorus of 
5,000 voices, led by the immense organ, in ''God save 
THE Queen ! " Thus we reasoned away Caput's predic- 
tions that we would be heartily sick of the experiment 
before the day was half-gone, and thankful to escape, as 
for our lives, from the hustling auditors of the grand 
chorus. We yielded one point. Instead of going up to 
Sydenham in an excursion-train, the better to note the 
appearance and manners of the Public, we waited for a 
quieter and later, at regular prices, and so reached the 
Crystal Palace Station about eleven o'clock. 

The punishment of our contumacy began immediately. 
Wedged in a dark passage with a thousand other steaming 
bodies, with barely room enough for breathing — not for 
moving hand or foot — retreat cut off and advance imprac- 
ticable, we w^aited until the pen was filled to overflowing 
by the arrival of the next train before the two-leaved 
doors at the Palaceward end split suddenly and emptied 
us into the open air. We made a feint of going through 
the main building with those of our party who had not 
already seen it, but every staircase was blocked by ascend- 
ing and descending droves, and nobody gave an inch to 
anybody else. The Mothers of England were all there, 
each with a babe in arms and another tugging at her 
skirts. Men swore — good-humoredly, — women scolded as 
naturally as m their own kitchens and butteries, and 
babies cried without fear or favor. The police kept a wise 
eye upon the valuables of the Palace, and let the people 
alone. Repelled in every advance upon art-chamber and 
conservatory, we collected our flurried forces and with- 
drew to the grounds. When sore-footed with walking 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. I23 

from fountain to flower-bed, the gentlemen watched for 
and obtained seats for the ladies upon a bench near the 
stand, where the competitive brass bands were perform- 
ing, heard, perhaps by themselves and their rivals, but 
few besides. 

The avenues were choked in every direction with swarms 
of the commonest-looking people our eyes had ever rested 
upon. Rags and squalor were seldom seen, and the yeo- 
manry and their families were fresh-colored and plump. 
The representatives from London and other large cities 
were easily distinguishable by a sharper, sometimes a 
pinched look, leaden complexions and smarter clothes. 
There is a Continental saying that in England, black- 
smiths make the women's dresses and men's hats. If the 
ladies of rank, beginning with the queen, are notably ill- 
dressed, what shall we say of the apparel of mechanics', 
small tradesmen's and farmers' wives and daughters, such 
as we beheld at Sydenham ? Linsey skirts, quite clearing 
slippered feet and ankles clothed in home-knit hose, w^ere 
converted into gala-suits by polonaises of low-priced gren- 
adine, or worked muslin of a style twenty years old, and 
bonnets out-flaunting the geranium-beds. The English 
gardeners may have borrowed the device of massing lawn- 
flowers from their countrywomen's hats. White was in 
high favor with the young, generally opaque stuffs such 
as pique and thick cambric, but we did not see one that 
was really clean and smooth. Most had evidently done 
holiday-duty for several seasons and were still considered 
'' fresh enough." Elderly matrons and spinsters panted in 
rusty black silk and shiny alpacas, set oif by broad cotton 
lace collars, astounding exhibitions of French lace, cheap 
flowers and often white feathers, upon hats that had not 
seen a milliner's block in a dozen seasons. Old and young 
were prone to ribbon-sashes with flying or drooping ends, 



124 LOITERIXGS IX PLEASANT PATHS. 

and cotton gloves. Some wore fur tippets over their sum- 
mer-robes. These we remarked the less for having seen 
ladies, traveling first-class, with footmen and maids in at- 
tendance, wear in August, grenadine and muslin dresses 
and sealskin jackets. 

The women were more easy in their finery than were 
the men in broadcloth, shirt-fronts and blackened boots. 
These huddled ' in awkward groups, talked loudly and 
laughed blusteringly, while their feminine companions 
strolled about, exchanging greetings and gossip. The 
little girls kept close to their mothers in conformity with 
British traditions on the government of girls of all ages ; 
the small boys munched apples and gingerbread-nuts, and 
stared stolidly around ; those of the bigger lads who could 
afford the few pence paid for the privilege, rode bicycles 
up and down the avenues until the blood threatened to 
start from the pores of their purple faces, and their eyes 
from the sockets. From that date to this, the picture of a 
half-grown Briton, — done up to the extreme of uncomfort- 
ableness in best jacket and breeches that would "just 
meet," — careering violently over the gravel under the fierce 
July sun, directing two-thirds of his energies to the main- 
tenance of his centre of gravity upon the ticklish seat, the 
rest to the perpetual motion of arms and legs, — stands with 
me as the type of the pitiable-ludicrous. Of men, women 
and children, at least one-half wore ribbon badges, vari- 
ously lettered and illuminated. Standards were borne in 
oblique, undress fashion, upon shoulders, and leaned 
against trees, advertising the presence of "Bands of 
Hope," "Rain Drops," " Rechabites," "Summer Clouds," 
*' Snow-Flakes " and " Cooling Springs." Many men, and 
of women not a few, had velvet trappings, in shape and 
size resembling Flemish horse-collars, about their necks, 
labeled in gold with cabalistic characters, denoting the 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. I25 

title borne by the wearer in some one of the Temperance 
Societies represented. 

Caput was right. The element of the picturesque was 
utterly wanting from the holiday crowd. The naive jollity 
that almost compensates for this deficiency in the fesis of 
Deutschland was likewise absent. The brass bands pealed 
on perseveringly, the crowd shifted lumberingly to and 
fro, and we grew hungry as well as tired. The Palace 
Restaurant would be crowded, we knew, but we worked 
our way thither by a circuitous course, avoiding the 
densest" jams " in corridors and stairways, and were agree- 
ably surprised at finding less than twenty persons at lunch, 
and in the long, lofty dining-room, the coolest, quietest 
retreat we had had that day. The dinner was excellent, 
the waiters prompt and attentive, and with the feeling 
that the doors (bolted by the restaurant-prices), were 
an effectual bulwark a^^ainst the roaring rabble, we dal- 
lied over our dessert as we might in the back drawing- 
room in Brighton with good Mr. Chipp behind Caput's 
chair. 

We would fain have lingered in the concert-hall to hear 
the chorus of five thousand voices upborne by the full 
swell of the mighty organ. There were the tiers of singers, 
mostly school-girls in white frocks, piled up to the ceiling, 
waiting for the signal to rise. Somebody said the organ 
was preluding, but of this we were not sure, such was the 
reigning hubbub. The important moment came. The 
thousands of the choir were upon their feet ; opened their 
mouths as moved by one unseen spring. The conductor 
swung his baton with musical emphasis and discretion. 
The mouths expanded and contracted in good time. We 
heard not one note of it all. Men shouted to one another 
and laughed uproariously ; women scolded and cackled ; 
babies screamed, — as if music, *' heavenly maid," had never 



126 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

been born, and it was no concern of theirs whether the 
Queen might, could, would, or should be saved. 

Caput put his mouth to my ear. 

*' This will kill you ! " he said, and by dint of strong 
elbows and broad shoulders, fought a way for us out of the 
press. 

"From all such — and the rest of it!" gasped Prima, 
when we were seeking lost breath, and smoothing rumpled 
plumage in the outer air. 

That blessed man was magnanimous ! He never so 
much as looked — '' You would come ! " 

He only said solicitously to me — '' I am afraid your head 
aches ! Would you like to sit quietly in the shade for 
awhile before we go home ? " 

Fallacious dream ! The British Public had lunched out- 
of-doors while we sat at ease within. The park, contain- 
ing more than two hundred acres, was littered with whitey- 
brown papers that had enwrapped the "• British Sangwich; " 
empty beer-bottles were piled under the trees, and the late 
consumers of the regulation-refreshments lounged upon 
the grass in every shady corner, smoking, talking and 
snoring. Abandoning the project of rest within the 
grounds, we walked toward the gate of egress. Every- 
where was the same waste of greasy papers, cheese-par- 
ings, bacon-rinds and recumbent figures, and, at as many 
points of our progress we saw three drunken women — too 
drunk to walk or rise. One lay in the blazing sunshine, 
untouched by Good Samaritan or paid police, a baby not 
over two years old sitting by her, crying bitterly. Caput 
directed a policeman to the shocking spectacle. He shook 
his head. 

" She's werry drunk ! " he admitted. '' But she h'aint 
noisy. We must give the h'attention of the Force to them 
w'ot/^'/V/" 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. 12/ 

It was but two o'clock when we entered the waiting- 
room of the station. Out-going trains were infrequent at 
that time of the day, and we must wait an hour. I found 
a comfortable sofa in the ladies' parlor and laid down my 
throbbing head upon a pillow of the spare shawls without 
which we never stirred abroad. A kindly-faced woman 
suspended her knitting and asked what she could do for 
me. 

''Maybe the lady would like a cup of tea with a tea- 
spoonful of brandy in it ? Or a glass of h'ale ? " 

I thanked her, but said I only wanted rest and quiet. 

''Which I mean to say, mem, it's 'ard to get to-day. I've 
been 'ere five year, keeper of this 'ere waiting-room, and 
never 'ave I seen such crowds. The trains h'are a-comin' 
h'in constant still, and will,. till h'evening. And h'every 
train, h'it do bring a thousand. A Temperance pic-nic, 
you see, mem, do allers draw h'uncommon ! " 

We saw, not of choice, one more fete-day in England — 
the Bank holiday lately granted to all classes of working- 
people. It fell on Monday, August 5th, and caught us in 
London with a day full of not-to-be-deferred engagements, 
the departure of some of our family-party being near at 
hand. The Banks, all public offices and shops were 
closed. The British Museum, Zoological Gardens, The 
Tower and parks would be crowded, we agreed, in modify- 
ing our plans. St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey seemed 
safe. We were right with respect to the Cathedral. An 
unusually large number of people strayed in and saun- 
tered about, looking at monuments and tablets in church 
and crypt, but we were free to move and examine. It was 
a "free day " at the Abbey. The chapels locked at other 
seasons, and only to be seen in the conduct of a verger, 
were now open to everybody, and everybody was there. 
We threaded the passage-v.rays in the wake of a fleet of 



128 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

cockneys, great and small, to whom the tomb that holds 
the remains of the Tudor sisters, and on which their great- 
est queen lies in marble state, signified no more than a 
revolving doll in a hair-dresser's window ; w^ho slouched 
aimlessly from Ben Jonson's bust to Chaucer's monument, 
and trod with equal apathy the white slab covering ** Old 
Parr," and the gray flagging lettered, ** Charles Dickens." 

That this judgment of the rank and file is not unchari- 
table we had proof in the demeanor and talk of the visitors. 

** James !" cried a wife to her heedless husband, when 
abreast of the tomb of Henry III. ** You don't look at 
nothink you parss. Don't you see this is the tomb of 
'Enry Thirteenth ? " 

** 'Enry or 'Arry ! " grow^led her lord without taking his 
hands from his pocket — *'Wot do I care for heV 

None of the comments, we overheard, upon the treasures 
of this grandest of burial-places amused us more than the 
talk of a respectable-looking man with his bright-eyed ten- 
year old son over the memorial to Sir John Franklin. 
Beneath a fine bust of the hero-explorer is a bas-relief of 
the Erebus and Terror locked in the ice. 

" See the vessels in the rocks, Pa ! " cried the boy. *' Or 
— is it ice ? " 

** I don't rightly know, Charley. Don't touch ! " 

** I wont. Pa ! I just want to read what this is on the ship. 
E, R, E, B, U, S!— A R. Bruce! Is he buried here, do 
you 'spose ? " 

''In course he is, me lard! They wouldn't never put 
h'another man's name h'upon 'is tombstone — would they ? " 

It is obviously unfair, say some of those for whom I am 
writing, to gauge the intelligence and breeding of a great 
nation by the manners of the lower classes. Should I retort 
that upon such data, as collected by British tourists in a 
flying trip through our country, is founded the popular 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. 1 29 

English belief that we are vulgar in manner and speech, 
superficial in education and crude in thought, I should be 
told that these are the impressions and opinions of a by- 
gone period, — belong to a generation that read Mrs. Trol- 
lope's and Marryatt's "Travels," and Boz's ''American 
Notes;" that the Briton of to-day harbors neither prejudice 
nor contempt for us ; appreciates all that is praiseworthy 
in us as individuals and a people ; is charitable to our 
faults. There are Americans resident abroad who will 
assert this. Some, because having made friends of en- 
lightened English men and women, true and noble, they 
see the masses through the veil of affectionate regard they 
have for the few. Others, flattered in every fibre of their 
petty natures by the notice of those who arrogate superi- 
ority of race and training, affect to despise their own land 
and kind ; would rather be Anglicized curs beneath the 
tables of the nobility than independent citizens of a free 
and growing country. We know both classes. We met 
them every day and everywhere for two years. America 
can justify herself against such children as those I have 
last described. 

But I have somewhat to say about the popular estimate 
in England of America and Americans, and I foresee that 
I shall write of other matters with more comfort when I 
have eased my spirit by a little plain speech upon this 
subject : 

"You agree with me, I am sure, in saying, * My coun- 
try, right or wrong ! ' " said a dear old English lady, turn- 
ing to me during a discussion upon the policy of Great 
Britain with regard to the Russian-Turkish war. 

"We say — 'My country, always right!'" replied I, 
smiling. "We are, as you often tell us, 'very young' — 
too young to have committed many national sins. Per- 
haps when we are a thousand or fifteen hundred years 
6* 



130 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

nearer the age of European governments, we, too, may 
have made dangerous blunders." 

An English gentleman, hearing a portion of this badi- 
nage, came up to me. 

*' You were not in earnest in what you said just now ?" 
he began, interrogatively. '* I honor America. I have 
studied her history, and I hail every step of her march to 
the place I believe God has assigned her — the leadership 
of the Christian world. She is fresh and enthusiastic. 
She is sound to the core. But she does make mistakes. 
Let us reason together for a little while. There is the 
Silver Bill, for example." 

*'I was talking nonsense," I said, impulsively. '' Mere 
braggadocio, and in questionable taste. But it irks me 
that the best and kindest of you patronize my country, and 
excuse me ! that so many who do it know next to nothing 

about us. Mrs. B asked me, just now, if it were 

* quite safe to promenade Broadway unarmed — on account 
of the savages, you know.' And when I answered — 'the 
nearest savages to us are in your Canadian provinces,' she 
said, without a tinge of embarrassment — ' Ah ! I am very, 
very excessively ignorant about America. In point of fact, 
it is a country in which I have no personal interest what- 
ever. I have a son in India, and one in Australia, but no 
friends on your side of the world.' Yet she is a lady, well 
educated and well-born. She has traveled much ; speaks 
several languages, and converses intelligently upon most 
topics. She is, moreover, too kind to have told me that 
my country is uninteresting had she dreamed that I could 
be hurt or offended by the remark. Another lady, a dis- 
ciple of Dr. Cummings, and his personal friend, asked my 

countrywoman, Mrs. T , ' if she came from America by 

steamer or by the overland route ? ' and a member of Par- 
liament told Mr. J , the other day, that the 'North 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. I3I 

should have let the South go when she tried to separate 
herself from the Union. The geographical position of the 
two countries showed they should never have been one 
nation.' 'The hand of the Creator,' he went on to say, 
'had placed a rocky rampart between them.' 'A rocky 

rampart ! ' repeated Mr. J , his mind running upon 

Mason's and Dixon's line. ' Yes ! The Isthmus of Darien ! 

''Americans are accused of over-sensitiveness and boast- 
fulness. Is it natural that we should submit tamely to 
patronage and criticism from those who calmly avow their 
' excessive ignorance ' of all that pertains to our land and 
institutions ? Can we respect those who assume to teach 
when they know less upon many subjects than we do ? A 
celebrated English divine once persisted in declaring to 
my husband that Georgia is a city, not a State. Another 
informed us that Pennsylvania is the capital of New Eng- 
land. Even my dear Miss W cannot be convinced 

that boys of nine years old are considered minors with us. 
She says she has been told by those w^ho ought to know 
that, at that age, they discard parental authority ; while 
her sister questioned me seriously as to the truth of the 
story that the feet of all American babies — boys and girls 
— are bandaged in infancy to make them small. Don't 
laugh ! This is all true, and I have not told you the tenth. 
The Silver Bill ! I have never met another Englishman 
who knew anything about it ! " 

My friend laughed, in spite of my injunction. 

"It is not 'natural' for Americans to 'submit tamely* 
to any kind of injustice, I fancy. But be merciful ! Have 
you read in the 'Nineteenth Century' Dr. Dale's 'Impres- 
sions of America?' " 

" I have. They are like himself, honest, sincere, thor- 
ough ! But I have also read Trollope's ' American Sena- 
tor,' a product of the nineteenth century that will be read 



132 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and credited by many who cannot appreciate Dr. Dale's 
scholarship and logic. May I tell you an anecdote — 
true in every particular — to offset the Senator's behavior 
in the Earl's drawing-room ? An English novelist, than 
whom none is better known on both sides of the water, 
dined, by invitation, at the house of a bona fide Senator in 
Washington. After dinner he approached the hostess in 
the drawing-room to take leave. 

*" It is very early yet, Mr. ," she said politely. 

" ' I know it. But the fact is I must write ten pounds' worth 
before 1 go to bed ! ' 

*'Yet this man is especially happy in clever flings at 
American society. We have faults — many and grievous ! 
But we might drop them the sooner if our monitors were 
better qualified to instruct us, and would admonish in 
kindness, not disdain." 

Because he was an Englishman, and I liked him, I with- 
held from my excited harangue many and yet more atro- 
cious absurdities uttered in my hearing by his compatriots. 
At this distance and time, and under the shelter of a nom 
de plume, I may relate an incident I forebore religiously 
from giving to my transatlantic acquaintances, albeit sorely 
tempted, occasionally, by their unconscious condescension 
and simplicity of arrogance — too amusing to be always 
offensive. 

We were taking a cup of ^ ^ arf temoow tea" with some 
agreeable English people, who had invited their rector 
and his wdfe to meet us. My seat was next the wife, a 
pretty, refined little w^oman, who graciously turned the 
talk into a channel where she fancied I would be at ease. 
She began to question me about America. Perceiving 
her motive, and being by this time somewhat weary of 
cruising in one, strait, I, as civilly, fought shy of my native 
shores, and plied her with queries in my turn. I asked 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. 1 33 

information, among other things, concerning Yorkshire 
and Hawortli, stating our intention of visiting the liome 
and church of the Brontes. The rectoress knew nothing 
about the topography of Yorkshire, but had heard of the 
Bronte novels. 

*' Wasn't 'Jane Eyre' just a little — naughty 1 I fancy I 
have heard something of the kind." 

Our English cousins ''farncy" quite as often as we 
*' guess," or ''reckon," or "presume," and sometimes as 
incorrectly. 

I waived the subject of Jane Eyre's morals by a brief 
tribute to the author's genius, and passed to Mrs. Gaskell's 
description of the West Riding town, Haworth. Our 
hostess caught the word "Keighley." 

" I was in Keighley last year, at a wedding," she inter- 
polated. It is near Haworth — did you say? And you 
have friends in Haworth ? " 

"I explained. 

"Ah!" politely. "I did not know Charlotte Bronte 
ever lived there. Her 'Jane Eyre ' was a good deal talked 
about when I was a girl. She was English — did you 
say ? " 

Dropping the topic for that of certain local antiquities, I 
discussed these with my gentle neighbor until I happened 
to, mention the name of an early Saxon king. 

" The familiarity, of Americans with early English his- 
tory quite astonishes me," she remarked. " I cannot un- 
derstand why they should be conversant with what concerns 
them so remotely " 

I suggested that their history was also ours until within 
a hundred years. That their great men in letters, states- 
manship and war belonged to us up to that time as much 
as to the dwellers upon English soil, the two countries be- 
ing under one and the same government. 



134 ^.OITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

The blue eyes were slightly hazy with bewilderment. 

'' A hundred years ! I beg your pardon — but I fancied — 
I was surely under the impression that America was dis- 
covered more than a hundred years ago ? " 

*' It was ! " I hastened to say. " Every American child is 
taught to say — 

• In fourteen hundred, ninety-two, 
Columbus crossed the ocean blue.' 

But" — feeling that I touched upon delicate ground, — "we 
were provinces until 1776, when we became a separate 
government." 

I just avoided adding — "and independent." 

The little lady's eyes cleared before a gleam that was 
more than the joy of discovery. It was, in a mild and 
decorous way, the rapture of creation. Her speech grew 
animated. 

"1776! And last year was 1876! Pardon me! but 
perhaps you never thought — I would say — has it ever 
occurred to you that possibly that may have been the 
reason why your National Exposition was called " The 
Centennial V 

Magnanimity and politeness are a powerful combination. 
By their aid, I said — " Very probably ! '' and sipped my tea 
as demurely as an Englishwoman could have done in the 
circumstances. 

It is both diverting and exasperating to hear English- 
men sneer openly and coarsely at the attentions be- 
stowed by American gentlemen upon the ladies under 
their care. Their dogged assumption — and disdainful as 
dogged — that this is an empty show exacted by us cannot 
be shaken by the fact of which they certainly are not ig- 
norant, — to wit, that our countrymen are cowards in 
naught else. I will cite but one of the many illustrations 



OUR ENGLISH COUSINS. 135 

that fell under my eye of their different policy toward the 
weaker sex. I had climbed the Ventnor Downs one after- 
noon by the help of my escort, and stood upon the brow of 
the highest hill, when we espied three English people, 
known to us by sight, approaching. The short grass was 
slippery, the direct ascent so steep that the last of the 
party, a handsome woman of fifty or thereabouts, was 
obliged, several times, to fall upon her hands and knees to 
keep from slipping backward. Her son, a robust Oxonian, 
led the way, cane in hand. Her hale, bluil husband came 
next, also grasping a stout staff. At the top they stopped 
to remark upon the beauty of the view and evening, thus 
giving time to the wife and mother to join them. She 
was very pale ; the sweat streamed down her face ; she 
caught her breath in convulsive gasps. Her attendants 
smiled good-humoredly. 

" Pretty well blown — eh ?" said her lord. 

Her affectionate son — *' Quite knocked-up, in fact ! " 

Yet these were gentlemen in blood and reputation. 

I do not defend the ways and means by which the Trav- 
elling American makes his name, and, too often, that of his 
country a by-word and a hissing in the course of the Euro- 
pean tour, which is, in his parlance, "just about the thing" 
for the opulent butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker, 
now-a-days. I do affirm that, judging him by the repre- 
sentative of the class corresponding to his in the Mother 
Country, he is no more blatant and objectionable to people 
of education and refinement than the Briton who is his fel- 
low-traveller. In aptness and general intelligence he will 
assuredly bear off the palm. If the American of a higher 
grade be slow to abandon his provincial accent, and his 
wife her shrill, "clipping" speech ; if what Bayard Taylor 
termed " the national catarrh " be obstinate in both, — the 
Englishman has his "aws " and "you knows," and lumber- 



136 'LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ing articulation ; calls the gar^on who cannot comprehend 
his order at the table d'hote ** a stupid ass," in the hearing 
of all, declares the weather to be ''nosty," the wine 
*' beastly," and the soup " filthy," while I have seen his 
w^fe bring her black-nosed pug to dinner with her, and 
feed him and herself with blanc mange from the same 
spoon. 

We received much courtesy and many kindnesses from 
English people in their own country and upon the conti- 
nent ; formed friendships with some the memory of which 
must warm our hearts until they cease to beat. Their 
statesmen, their scholars, and their philanthropists have, 
as such, no equals in any clime or age. If w^e wince under 
censures we feel are unjust, and under sarcasms that cut 
the more keenly because edged with truth : — if, when they 
tell us we are ''young," we are disposed to retort that 
they are old enough to know and to do better, let us, in 
solemn remembrance of our kinship in blood and in faith, 
borrow, in thought, my friend's advice, and "be merciful." 




CHAPTER XI. 

Over the Channel, 

LAUGHED once on the route from Dover to 
Calais. The fact deserves to be jotted down as an 
" Incident of Travel." For the boat was crowded, 
the wind brisk, and we had a "chopping sea " in the Chan- 
nel. Words of woe upon which we need not expatiate to 
those who have lost sight of Shakspeare's Cliff in like cir- 
cumstances. The voyage was filled with disgust as Long- 
fellow's Night with music, and with untold misery to all 
of our party excepting Caput, to whom smooth and tur- 
bulent seas are as one. If he has a preference, it is for the 
latter. He led oif in the laugh that extended even to the 
wretched creature I had known in calmer hours, as Myself. 
An elderly lord was on board. A very loud lord as to 
voice. A mighty lord in rank and honors, if one might 
judge from the attentions of deck-stewards and some of 
the initiated passengers. A very big lord as to size. A 
very rich lord, if the evidence of furred mantles, and a 
staff of obsequious servants be admitted. A very pomp- 
ous lord, whose stiffened cravat, beef-steak complexion 
and goggle-eyes reminded us of "Joey Bagstock, Tough 
Jo, J. B., sir!" 

If, having sunk to the depths of suffering and degrada- 
tion, we could have slid into a lower deep, it would have 
been by reason of that man's struttings and vaporings and 



138 ' LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

buUyings in our sight. He tramped the deck over and 
upon the feet of those who were too sick, or too much 
crowded to get out of his path, — courier and valet at his 
heels, one bearing a furled umbrella and a mackintosh in 
case it should rain, the other a second furred surtout 
should " my lord " grow chilly. 

" 111, sir ! what do you mean, sir ! I am never ill at sea ! " 
he vociferated to the captain, who ventured a query and 
the offer of his own cabin should his lordship require the 
refuge. 

" Pinafore" had not then been written, and the assertion 
w^ent unchallenged. 

''I have travelled thousands of miles by water, sir, and 
never known so much as a qualm of sea-sickness — not a 
qualm, sir ! Do you take me for a woman, sir, or a fool ?" 

In his choler he was more like Bagstock than ever, as he 
continued his promenade, gurgling and puffing, goggling 
and wagging his head like an apoplectic china mandarin. 

We were in mid-channel where there was a rush of 
master, servants, and officious deck-hands to the guards, 
that made the saddest sufferers raise their eyes. In a few 
minutes, the parting of the group of attendants showed the 
elderly lord, upon his feet, indeed, but staggering so 
wildly that the courier and a footman held him up between 
them while the valet settled his wig and replaced his hat. 
His complexion was ashes-of-violets, if there be such a 
tint, — his eyes were as devoid of speculation as those of a 
boiled fish. The steward picked up his gold-headed cane, 
but the flabby hands could not grasp it. The captain 
hastened forward. 

''Very sorry, me lud, I'm sure, for the little accident. 
But it's a nosty sea, this trip, me lud, as your ludship sees. 
An uncommon beastly sea ! I hope your ludship is not 
suffering much ? " 



OVER THE CHANNEL. 1 39 

The British lion awoke in the great man's bosom. The 
crimson of rage burned away the ashes. The eyes glared 
at the luckless official. 

*' Suffering, sir ! Do you suppose I care for suffering ? 
It is the donimed mortification of the thing ! " 

Then, as I have said. Caput laughed, and the sickest 
objects on board joined in feeble chorus. 

Prima lifted her head from her father's shoulder. *' I 
am glad I came ! " she said, faintly. 

So was I — almost — for the scene lacked no element of 
grotesqueness nor of poetical retribution. 

The long room in the Paris station [gare), where newly- 
arrived travellers await the examination of their luggage, 
is comfortless, winter and summer. It was never drearier 
than on one March morning, when, after a night-journey 
of fifteen hours, we stood, for the want of seats, upon the 
stone floor, swept by drifts of mist from the open doors, 
until our chattering teeth made very broken French of our 
petition to the officers to clear our trunks at their earliest 
convenience, and let us go somewhere to fire and breakfast. 
The inspection was the merest form, as we found it every- 
where. Perhaps we looked honest (or poor), or our cheer- 
ful alacrity in surrendering our keys and entreating prompt 
attendance, may have had some share in purchasing im- 
munity from the annoyances of search and confiscation 
complained of by many. One trunk was unlocked ; the 
tray lifted and put back, without the disturbance of a sin- 
gle article ; all the luggage received the mystic chalking 
that pronounced it innocuous to the French Republic ; we 
entered a carriage and gave the order : *' 61 Avenue Fried- 
land ! " 

Caput, to whom every quarter of the city and every in- 
cident of the Commune Reign of Terror were familiar, 
pointed out streets and squares, as we rode along, that 



I40 • LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

gained a terrible notoriety through the events of that 
bloody and fiery era. I recollect leaning forward to look 
at one street — not a wide one — in which ten thousand dead 
had lain at one time behind the barricades. For the rest, 
I was ungratefully inattentive. Paris, in the gray of early 
morning, looked sleepy, respectable, and dismal. The 
mist soaked us to the bone ; the drive was long ; we had 
void stomachs and aching heads. Some day we might lis- 
ten to and believe in the tale of her revolutions, her hor- 
rors and her glories. Now this was a physical, and there- 
fore, a mental impossibility. 

''At last!" 

Almost in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe, looming 
gigantic through the fog, the carriage stopped at a hand- 
some house. A porter came out for our luggage, the con- 
cierge gave us into the care of a waiter. 

'' But yes, monsieur, the rooms were ready. Perfectly. 
And the fires. Perfectly — perfectly ! Monsieur would 
find all as had been ordered." 

Up we went, two flights of polished stairs, where never 
an atom of dust was allowed to settle — along one hall, 
across an ante-chamber, and the w^aiter threw back a door. 
A large chamber stood revealed, made lightsome by two 
windows ; heartsome by a glowing fire of sea-coal. And set 
in front of the grate was a round table draped whitely, 
and bearing that ever-blessed sight to a fagged-out woman 
— a tea equipage. By the time I, as the family invalid, 
was divested of bonnet and mufflers, and laid in state upon 
the sofa at one side of the hearth, a tap at the door heralded 
the entrance of a smiling English housekeeper in a black 
dress and muslin cap with flowing lappets. She carried a 
tray ; upon it were hissing tea-urn, bread and butter, and 
light biscuits. 

'* Miss Campbell hopes the ladies are not very much 



OVER THE CHANNEL. I41 

fatigued after their long journey, and that they will find 
themselves quite comfortable here," 

How comfortable we were then, and during all the weeks 
of our stay in Hotel Campbell ; how we learned to know 
and esteem, as she deserved, the true gentlewoman who 
presides with gracious dignity at her table, and makes of 
her house a genuine home for guests from foreign lands, 
I can only state here in brief. Neither heart nor con- 
science will let me pass over in silence the debt of grati- 
tude and personal regard we owe her. I shall be only too 
happy should these lines be the means of directing other 
travelers to a house that combines, in a remarkable de- 
gree, elegance and comfort in a city whose hotels, board- 
ing-houses, and " appartements " seldom possess both. 

The March weather of Paris is execrable. Some portion 
of our disappointment at this may have been due to popu- 
lar fictions respecting sunny France, and a city so fair that 
the nations come bending with awe and delight before her 
magnificence ; where good Americans — of the upper -ten- 
dom — wish to go when they die ; the home of summer, 
butterflies, and Worth ! To one who has heard, and, in a 
measure, credited all this, the fog that hides from him the 
grand houses across the particular Rue or Avenue in which 
he lodges, are more penetrating, the winds more bitter, the 
flint-dust they hurl into his eyes is sharper, the rain, sleet, 
and snow-flurries that pelt him to shelter more disagreea- 
ble — than London fog or Berlin gloom and dampness. 
There were whole days during which I sat, perforce, by 
my fire, or, if I ventured to the window to enjoy the pros- 
pect of sheets of rain, dropping a wavering curtain between 
me and the Rothschild mansion opposite, I must wrap 
my shawl about my shoulders, so '' nipping and eager " was 
the air forcing its way between the joints of the casements. 

But there were other days in which out-door existence 



142 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

was tolerable in 2i fiacre, jealously closed against the whir- 
ling dust. Where it all came from w^e could not tell. 
The streets of Paris are a miracle of cleanliness. Twice a 
day they are swept and w^ashed, and the gutters run con- 
tinually w4th clear, living water. 

The wind was keen, the dust pervasive, the sky a bright, 
hard blue when we went, for the first time, to the tomb of 
Napoleon in the Hotel des Invalides. The blasts held 
revel in the courtyard w^e traversed in order to gain the 
entrance. The sentinels at the gate halted in the lee of 
the lodges before turning in their rounds to face the dust- 
laden gusts. Once within the church a great peace fell 
upon us — sunshine and silence. It was high noon, and the 
light flowed through the cupola crowning the dome di- 
rectly into the great circular crypt in the centre of the 
floor, filling — overflowing it with glory. We leaned upon 
the railing and looked down. Twenty feet below was the 
sarcophagus. It is a monolith of porphyry, twelve feet in 
length, six in breadth, with a projecting base of green 
granite. Around it, wrought into the tesselated marble 
pavement, is a mosaic wreath of laurel — glossy green. 
Between this and the sarcophagus one reads — ''^Austerlitz^ 
Marengo, Jena, Rivoli,'' and a long list of other battle-fields, 
iJso in brilliant mosaic. Without this circle, upon the 
balustrade fencing in the tomb, are twelve statues, repre- 
sentatives of as many victories. A cluster of fresh flowers 
lay upon the sarcophagus. And upon all, the sunshine, 
that seemed to strike into the polished red marble and 
bring out the reflection of hidden flame. It was a strange 
optical illusion, so powerful one had to struggle to 
banish the idea that the porphyry w^as translucent and the 
glow reddening the sides of the crypt such gleams as one 
sees in the heart of an opal — *' the pearl with a soul in 
it." It was easier to give the rein to fancy and think of a 



OVER THE CHANNEL. - 143 

Rosicrucian lamp burning above the stilled heart of the 
entombed Emperor. The quiet of the magnificent burial- 
place is benignant, not oppressive. In noting the absence 
of the sentimeatal fripperies with which the French de- 
lieht to adorn the tombs of the loved and illustrious dead 
w^e could not but hope that the grandeur of the subject 
Vv^-ought within the architect this pure and sublime con- 
ception of more than imperial state. 

We followed the winding staircase from the right of 
the high altar, — above which flashes a wonderful golden 
crucifix — to the door of the crypt. Bertrand on one side, 
Duroc on the other, guard their sleeping master. ''The 
bivouac of the dead ! " The trite words are pregnant 
with dignity and with power when quoted upon that 
threshold. Over the doorway is a sentence in French, 
from Napoleon's will : 

"I desire that my ashes may repose on the banks of 
the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I 
have so much loved." * 

The Communists tore down the bronze column in the 
Place Vend6me. The bas-reliefs, winding from bottom 
to top, Avere cast from cannon captured by Napoleon, 
and his statue surmounted the, shaft. They battered the 
Tuilleries, where he had lived, ^ to a yawning ruin, and 
outraged the artistic sensibilities of the world by setting 
fire to the Louvre. But, neither paving-stone, nor bomb, 
nor torch, was flung into the awful circle where rests the 
hero, with his faithful generals at his feet. 

Jerome Bonaparte, his brother's inferior and puppet, 
is buried in a chapel at the left of the entrance of the 
Dome. A bronze statue of him rests upon his sarcoph- 



* "y^ desire que mes cendres refosent sur les bords de la Seine^ au milieu de 
ce ^euple Frangois que j'ai tant aime," 



144 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

agus. His eldest son — by his second marriage — is near 
him. A smaller tomb holds the heart of Jerome's Queen. 
Joseph Bonaparte is interred in a chapel opposite, the 
great door being between the brothers. 

We took the Place de la Concorde in our ride uptown. 
We did this whenever we could without making too long 
a detour. The Luxor obelisk, three thousand years old, 
is in the middle of the Square. A beautiful fountain 
plays upon each side of this, and the winds, having free 
course in the unsheltered Place, flung the waters madly 
about. Twelve hundred people were trampled to death 
here once. A discharge of fireworks in celebration of the 
marriage of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette caused a 
panic and a stampede among the horses attached to the 
vehicles blocking up the great square. They dashed into 
the dense mass of the populace, and in half-an-hour the 
disaster was complete. Sixteen years later there was an- 
other panic, — another rush of maddened brutes, that lasted 
eighteen months. Twenty-eight hundred souls were driv- 
en to bliss or woe in the hurly-burly — the devil's dance of 
the eighteenth century. The bride and groom, whose 
nuptial festivities had caused the minor catastrophe, duly 
answered to their names at the calling of the death-roll. 
The most precious blood of the kingdom was flung to 
right and left as ruthlessly as the March winds now tore 
the spray of the fountains. 

Nobody knows, they say, exactly w^here the guillotine 
stood ; — only that it was near the obelisk and the bronze 
basins, where Tritons and nymphs bathe all day long. 
We were in the Place one evening when an angry sunset 
tinged the waters to a fearful red. Passers-by stopped to 
look at the phenomenon, until quite a crowd collected. 
A very quiet crowd for Parisians, but eyes sought other 
eyes meaningly, some in superstitious dread. While we re- 



OVER THE CHANNEL. 145 

•v^iewed, mentally, the list of the condemned brought hither 
in those two years, it would not have seemed strange had 
the dolphins vomited human blood into the vast pools. 

'^Monsieur will see the Colonne de Juillet?" said our 
coachman, who, as we gazed at the fountains on this day, 
had exchanged some w^ords with a compatriot. ''There 
has been an accident to" (or at) ''the Colonne. Mon- 
sieur and mesdames will find it interesting, without 
doubt." The wind was too sharp for bandying w^ords. 
We jumped at the conclusion that the colossal Statue of 
Liberty, poised gingerly upon the gilt globe on the summit 
of the monument, had been blown down ; bade him drive 
to the spot, and closed the window. 

The Colonne de Juillet stands in the Place de la Bastille. 
No need to tell the story of the prison-fastness. The use- 
less key hangs in the peaceful halls of Mount Vernon. 
The leveled stones are built into the Bridge de la Con- 
corde. These "French" titles of squares, bridges, and 
streets, are sometimes apt, oftener fantastic, not infre- 
quently horribly incongruous. The good Archbishop of 
Paris was shot upon the site of the old Bastille, in the 
revolution of 1848, pleading with both parties for the ces- 
sation of the fratricidal strife, and dying, like his Lord, with 
a prayer for his murderers upon his lips. Under the Col- 
umn of July lie buried the victims of still another revolu- 
lution — that of 1830, — with some w^ho fell at the neigh- 
boring barricade, in 1848. One must carry a pocket rec- 
ord of wars and tumults, if he would keep the run of 
Parisian emeiites. 

Our cocker's information was correct. A throng gath- 
ered about the railed-in base of the column. But Liberty 
still tip-toed upon the gilded world, and the bronze shaft 
was intact. 

"If Monsieur would like to get out" — said the driver 
7 



146 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

at the door — '' he can learn all about the accident. Lepau- 
vre diable leaped — it is now less than an hour since." 

" Leaped ! " Then the interesting accident was describ- 
ed. A man had jumped down from the top of the monu- 
ment. They often did it. 

We ought to have been shocked. But the absurdity of 
the misunderstanding, the man's dramatic enjoyment of 
the situation, and his manner of communicating the news, 
rather tempted us to amusement. 

*'Was he killed?" 

**Ah! without doubt, Madame! The colonne has one 
hundred and fifty-two feet of height. Perfectly killed. 
Monsieur ! " 

Impelled by a wicked spirit of perversity, or a more 
complex caprice, I offered another query : 

''What do you suppose he thought of while falling?" 

The fellow scanned my impassive face. 

''Ah, Madame ! of nothing! One never thinks at such 
a moment. Ma foil why should he ? He will be out of 
being — rien — in ten seconds. He has no more use for 
thought. Why think ? " 

We declined to inspect the stone on which the suicide's 
head had struck. Indeed, assented our coche?^ where was 
the use ? The body had been removed immediately, and 
the pavement v/ashed. The police would look to that. 
Monsieur would see only a wet spot. The wind would 
soon dry it. Ah ! they w^ere skilful {/labile) in such acci- 
dent at the monument. If a man were weary of life, there 
was no better place for him — and no noise made about it 
afterward. 

"Somehow," said Prima, presently, "I cannot feel that 
a Frenchman's soul is as valuable as ours. They make so 
light of life and death, and as for Eternity, they resolve it 
into, as that man said — 'nothing.'" 



OVER THE CHANNEL. I47 

*' ' He giveth to all life and breath and all things, and 
hath made of one blood all nations of men,' " I quoted, 
gravely. 

I would not admit, unless to myself, that the coachman's 
talk of the wet spot upon the pavement and the significant 
gesture of blowing away a gas, or scent, that had accom- 
panied his '' Nothing," brought to my imagination the 
figure of a broken phial of spirits of hartshorn — pungent, 
volatile — rien ! 

On another windy morning we made one of our favorite 
"Variety Excursions." We had spent the previous day at 
the Louvre, and eyes and minds needed rest. I have seen 
people who could visit this mine of richest art for seven 
and eight consecutive days, without suffering from exhaus- 
tion or plethora. Three hours at a time insured for me a 
sleepless night, or dreams thronged with travesties of the 
beauty in which I had reveled in my waking hours. In- 
stead then, of entering the Louvre on the second day, we 
checked the carriage on the opposite side of the street 
before the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois. 

Dionysius the Areopagite, converted by Paul's sermon 
on Mars' Hill, went on a mission to Paris, suffered death 
for his faith upon Montmartre — probably a corruption of 
Mons Marty rum, — and was interred upon the site of St. 
Germain I'Auxerrois. His tomb and chapel are there, in 
support of the legend. Another chapel is dedicated to 
''Notre Dame de la Compassion." The name reads like a 
sorrowful satire. For we had not come thither out of re- 
spect for St. Dionysius — alias St. Denis — nor to gaze upon 
frescoes and paintings — all fine of their kind, — nor to talk 
of the battle between Bourbons and populace in 1831, 
when upon the eleventh anniversary of the Due de Berry's 
assassination, as a memorial mass was in progress, the 
church. was stormed by a mob — that r^;/<^///^-deep that was 



148 ' LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ever boiling like a pot — the priests violently ejected, the 
friends of the deceased Due forced to fly for their lives, 
and the old church itself closed against priests and wor- 
shippers for seven years. It was the royal parish church, 
for a long time. Catherine de Medicis must have attended 
it, being a good daughter of the Church. Hence there was 
especial propriety in her order that from the belfry of this 
sanctuary should be given the signal for the massacre of 
her dear son's heretic subjects on St. Bartholomew's Night, 
1572. From a window in his palace of the Louvre, Charles 
fired as fast as his guards could load carbines, upon the 
flying crowds in the streets. In obedience to tradition, a 
certain window was, up to the beginning of this century, 
designated as that in which he was stationed on that oc- 
casion, and an inscription to this effect was engraved 
beneath it : 

" Cest de cette fenetre que Vinfame Charles 9 d' execrable 
vihnoire a tire, sur le peiiple avec une carabine^ 

''Upon the people!" It was not safe even in 1796 to 
Avrite that the murdered were Huguenots and that they 
perished for that cause and none other. The cautious in- 
scription was removed upon the belated discovery that the 
part of the palace containing this window was not built 
until the execrable Charles was in his grave. The balcony 
from which he "drew "upon all who did not wear the 
white badge of Romanism, was in the front of the palace 
where the deep boom of the bell must have jarred him to 
his feet, pealing from midnight to dawn. The government 
suffered no other knell to sound for the untimely taking- 
off of nearly one hundred thousand of the best citizens of 
France. 

A modern steeple lifts a stately spire between the church- 
porch and the adjoining Mayor's Court. The little old 
belfry is thrown into background and shadow, as if it 



OVER THE CHANNEL. I49 

sought to slink out of sight and history. We paused be- 
neath it, within the church upon the very spot pressed by 
the ringer's feet that awful night. The sacristan stared 
when we asked what had become of the bell, and why it 
had not been preserved as a historical relic. 

''There is a carillon (chime) in the new steeple. Fine 
bells, large and musical. Unfortunately, they do not at 
present play." 

The ceiling of the church is disproportionately low ; the 
windows, splendid with painted glass, light the interior 
inadequately, even in fine weather. As we paced the aisles 
the settling of the clouds without was marked by denser 
shades in the chapels and chancel, blotting out figures and 
colors in frescoes and paintings, and making ghostly the 
trio of sculptured angels about the cross rising above the 
holy-water basin — or benitier. Fountains of holy-water at 
each corner of the Place would not be amiss. 

The Parisian Pantheon has had a hard struggle for a 
name. First, it was the Church of Ste. Genevieve, the 
patron saint of Paris, erected soon after her martyrdom, 
A.D. 500. The present building, finished in 1790, bore 
the same title until in 1791, the Convention, in abolishing 
Religion at large, called it ''the Pantheon " and dedicated 
it to "the great men of a grateful country." This dedica- 
tion, erased thirty years afterward, was in 1830, again set 
upon the facade, and remains there, malgre the decree of 
Church and State, giving back to it the original name. 

Under the impression that Ste. Genevieve was buried in 
the chapel named for her and the church decorated with 
scenes from her life, I accosted a gentlemanly priest and 
asked permission on behalf of a namesake of the girl-saint 
to lay a rosary entrusted to me, upon her tomb. He heard 
me kindly, took the chaplet and proceeded to inform me 
that Ste. Genevieve was burned (<5r2//e^), but that "we have 



ISO LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

here in her shrine, her hand, miraculously preserved, and 
her ashes." 

'' That must do, I suppose," said I, as deputy for Ameri- 
can Genevieve. The chaplet was laid within the shrine, 
blessed, crossed and returned to me. I had no misgivings 
until our third visit to Paris, when, going into St. Etienne 
du Mont, situated also in the Place du Pantheon, I dis- 
covered that Ste. Genevieve had not been burned ; had 
been buried, primarily, in the Pantheon, then removed to 
St. Etienne du Mont, and had now rested for a thousand 
years or so, in a tomb grated over to preserve it from being 
destroyed by the kisses and touches of the faithful. I 
bought another rosary ; the priest undid a little door on 
the top of the grating, passed the beads through and 
rubbed them upon the sacred sarcophagus. Novices are 
liable to such errors and consequent discomfiture. 

The Pantheon, imposing in architecture and gorgeous in 
adornment, assumed to us, through a series of disappoint- 
ments, the character of a vast receiving-vault. The crypt 
is massive and spacious, supported by enormous pillars of 
masonry, and remarkable for a tremendous echo, whereby 
the clapping of the guide's hands is magnified and multi- 
plied into a prolonged and deafening cannonade, rolling 
and bursting through the dark vaults, as if all the sons of 
thunder once interred (but not staying) here were compar- 
ing experiences above their vacated tombs, and suiting 
actions to words in fighting their battles over again. 

Mirabeau's remains were taken from this crypt for re-in- 
terment in Pere Lachaise. Marat — the Abimelech of the 
Jacobin fraternity — was torn from his tomb, tied up in a 
sack like offal, and thrown into a sewer. There is here a 
wooden sarcophagus, cheap and pretentious, inscribed with 
the name of Rousseau and the epitaph — "Here rests the 
man of Nature and of Truth." The door is ajar — a hand 



OVER THE CHANNEL. 15I 

and wrist thrust forth, upbear a flaming torch — an auda- 
cious conception, that startled us when we came unex- 
pectedly upon it. 

''A sputtering flambeau in this day and generation," 
said Caput. 

The guide, not understanding one English word, has- 
tened to inform us that the tomb was empty. 

''Where, then, is the body?" 

A shrug. ''Ah ! monsieur, who knows ? " 

Another wooden structure, with a statue on top, is dedi- 
cated, ^^ Aiix manes de Voltaire. '' 

" Poet, historian, philosopher, he exalted the man of in- 
tellect and taught him that he should be free. He de- 
fended Calas, Sirven, De la Barre, and Montbailly ; com- 
bated atheists and fanatics ; he inspired toleration ; he 
reclaimed the rights of man from servitude and feudalism." 
Thus runs the epitaph. 

"Empty, also!" said the guide, tapping the sarcopha- 
gus. " The body was removed by stealth and buried — who 
can say where ? " 

" Was anybody left here ? " ' 

"But yes, certainly, monsieur ! " and we were showed the 
tombs — as yet unrifled — of Marshal Lannes, Lagrange, the 
mathematician, and Souffiot, the architect of the Pantheon ; 
likewise, the vaults in which the Communists stored gun- 
powder for the purpose of blowing up the edifice. It was 
a military stronghold in 1848, and again in 187 1, and but 
for the opportune dislodgment of the insurgents at the 
latter date the splendid pile would have followed the ex- 
ample of the noted dead who slumbered, for a time, beneath 
her dome — then departed — "who can tell where ?" 

The Hotel and Museum de Cluny engaged our time for 
the rest of the forenoon. A visit to it is a " Variety Excur- 
sion " in itself. The hall, fifty feet high, and more than 



152 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

sixty in length, and paved with stone — headless trunks, 
unlidded sarcophagi, like dry and mouldy bath-tubs ; bro- 
ken marbles carved with pagan devices, and heaps of 
nameless debris lying about in what is, to the unlearned, 
meaningless disorder — was the frigidarium^ or cold-water 
baths, belonging to the palace of the Roman Emperor 
Constantius Chlorus, built between a.d. 290 and 306. It 
was bleak with the piercing chilliness the rambler in Roman 
ruins and churches never forgets — which has its acme in 
the more than deathly cold of that ancient and stupendous 
refrigerator, St. John of Lateran, and never departs in the 
hottest noon-tide of burning summer from the frigidaria of 
Diocletian and Caracalla. But we lingered, shivering, to 
hear that the Apostate Julian was here proclaimed Em- 
peror by his soldiers in 360, and to see his statue, gray and 
grim, near an altar of Jupiter, found under the church of 
Notre Dame. Wherever Rome set her foot in her day of 
power, she stamped hard. Centuries, nor French revolu- 
tions can sweep away the traces. 

In less than three minutes the guide was pointing out 
part of Moliere's jaw-bone affixed to a corridor-wall in the 
Musee. This, directly adjoining the Roman palace, was a 
*' branch establishment " of the celebrated Abbey of Cluny, 
in Burgundy ; next, a royal palace, first occupied by the 
English widow of Louis XII., sister of Bluff King Hal. 
*'Z^ chamhre de la Reine Blanche,'' so called because the 
queens of France wore white for mourning — is now the re- 
ceptacle of a great collection of musical instruments, num- 
bered and dated. James V. of Scotland married Madeleine, 
daughter of Francis I., in this place. After the first Revo- 
lution, when kings' houses were as if they had not been, 
Cluny became state property, and was bought by an archae- 
ologist, who converted it into a museum. There are now 
upward of nine thousand articles on the catalogue. The 



OVER THE CHANNEL. 1 53 

reader will thankfully excuse me from attempting a sum- 
mary, but heed the remark that the collection is valuable 
and varied, and better worth visit and study than any other 
assortment of relics and ancient works of art we saw in 
France. The fascination it exerted upon us and others is 
doubtless, in part, referable to the character of the build- 
ing in which the collection is stored. Palissy faience, ivory 
carvings, rich with the slow, mellow dyes of centuries ; 
enamels in copper, executed for Francis I. ; Venetian 
glasses ; old weapons ; quaint and ornate tilings ; tapes- 
tries, more costly than if woof and broidery were pure gold 
— are tenfold more ravishing when seen in the light from 
mullioned windows of the fifteenth century, and set in re- 
cesses whose carvings vie in beauty and antiquity with the 
objects enclosed by their walls. Gardens, deep with shade, 
mossy statues and broken fountains dimly visible in the 
alleys, great trees tangled and woven into a thick roof over 
walks and green sward^-all curiously quiet in the heart of 
the restless city, seclude Thermae and Hotel in hushed and 
dusky grandeur. 

The Rue St. Jacques, skirting the garden-wall on one 
side, was an old Roman road. By it we were transported, 
without too violent transition from the Past, into the Paris 
of To-Day. / 




CHAPTER XII. 
Versailles — Expiatory Chapel — P^re Lachaise, 

HE guide-books say that the visitor to the palace 
of Versailles is admitted, should he desire it, to 
five different court-yards. We cared for but one 
— the coiir iVhonneur whose gates are crowned with groups 
emblematical of the victories of le grand Alonarque. 

It is an immense quadrangle, paved with rough stones, 
and flanked on three sides by the palace and wings. The 
central chateau, facing the entrance, was built by Louis 
XIII., the wings by Louis XIV. The prevailing color Js a 
dull brick-red ; the roofs are of different heights and styles ; 
the effect of the whole far less grand, or even dignified, 
than we had anticipated. The pavilions to the right and 
left are lettered, ''^A toutes les gloires de la France. '' Gigan- 
tic statues, beginning, on the right hand, with Bayard, 
'•^ sans peur et sans reproche," guard both sides of the court. 
In the centre is a colossal equestrian statue in bronze of 
Louis XIV., the be-wigged, be-curled, and be-laced darling 
of himself and a succession of venal courtezans. At the 
base of this statue we held converse, long and low, of cer- 
tain things this quadrangle had witnessed when, through it, 
lay the way to the most luxurious and profligate court that 
has cursed earth and insulted Heaven since similar follies 
and crimes wrought the downfall of the Roman Empire. 
Of the throngs of base parasites that flocked thither in the 



VERSAILLES — P^RE LACHAISE. I 55 

days when Pompadour and Du Barry held insolent misrule 
over a weaker, yet more vicious sovereign than Louis XIV^. 
Of the payment exacted for generations of such amazing 
excesses, when Parisian garrets and slums sent howling 
creditors by the thousand to settle accounts with Louis 
XVL Vast as is the space shut in by palace-walls and, 
folding gates, they filled it with ragged, bare-legged, red- 
capped demons. Upon the balcony up there, the king, 
also wearing the red cap, appeared at his good children's 
call. Anything for peace and life ! Upon the same bal- 
cony stood, the same day, his braver wife, between her 
babes, true royalty sustaining her to endure, without quail- 
ing, the volleys of contumely hurled at ''the Austrian 
woman." Having secured king, queen, and children as 
hostages for the payment of the national debt of ven- 
geance, the complainants sacked the palace, made an end 
of its glory as a kingly residence, until Louis Philippe re- 
paired ravages to the extent of his ability, and converted 
such of the state apartments as he adjudged unnecessary 
for court uses into an historical picture-gallery. 

The history of the French nation — of its monarchs, 
generals, marshals, victories, coronations, and hundreds of 
lesser events — is there written upon canvas. Eyes and 
feet give out and the brain wearies before it is half read. 
The polished floors, inlaid with different-colored woods, 
smooth as glass, are torture to the burning soles ; the 
aching in the back of the neck becomes agony. Yet one 
cannot leave the work unfinished, where every step is a 
surprise and each glance discovers fresh objects of interest. 

" If only we had the moral courage not to look at the 
painted ceilings!" said Dux, meditatively ; "or if it were 
en regie for a fellow to lie upon his back in order to inspect 
them!" 

We were in the Gallery of Mirrors, two hundred and 



156 ^ LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

forty feet long ; seventeen windows looking down upon 
gardens and park, upon fountains, groves, and lakelets ; 
seventeen mirrors opposite these repeating the scenes 
framed by the casements. 

" The ceiling by Lebrun represents scenes in the life of 
the Grand Monarch," uttered the guide. 

Hence the plaint, echoed groaningly by us all. 

The chamber in which Louis XIV. died is furnished 
very much as it was when he lay breathing more and more 
faintly, hour after hour, within the big bed lifted by the 
dais from the floor, that, sleeping or dying, he might lie 
above the common walks of men. Communicating with 
the king's bed-room is the celebrated Salle de I'oeil de 
Boeuf, the ox-eyed window at one side giving the name. 
The courtiers awaited there each day the announcement 
that the king was awake and visible, beguiling the tedium 
of their long attendance by sharp trades in love, court, and 
state honors. It is a shabby-genteel little room, the hard- 
ness, glass and glare that distinguish palatial parlors from 
those in which sensible, comfort-loving people live, rubbed 
and tarnished by time and disuse. Filled with a moving 
throng in gala-apparel, this and the expanse of the royal 
bed-chamber may have been goodly to behold ; untenanted, 
they are stiff and desolate. 

The central balcony, opening from the great chamber— 
the balcony on which, forty-four years later, Marie Antoi- 
nette stood with her children— was, upon the death-night 
of the king, occupied by impatient officials— impatient, 
but no longer anxious, for the decease of their lord was 
certain and not far off. The hangings of the bed, cum- 
brous with gold embroidery, had been twisted back to give 
air to the expiring man. As the last sigh fluttered from 
his lips, the high chamberlain upon the balcony broke his 
white wand of office, shouting to the crowds in the court- 



VERSAILLES — PERE LACHAISE. I 5/ 

yard, ^^ Le roi est nwrt ! " and, without taking breath, '' Vive 
le roi !'' 

No incident in French history is more widely known. 
In talking of it in the bed-chamber and balcony, it was as 
if we heard it for the first time. 

The *' little apartments of the queen" were refreshment 
to our jaded senses and nerves. They are a succession of 
cozy nooks in a retired wing. Boudoirs, w^here were the 
soft lounges and low chairs, excluded by etiquette from 
the courtly salons ; closets, fitted up with writing-desk, 
chair, and footstool ; others, lined on all sides with books ; 
still others, where the queen, whether it were Maria 
Lesczinski or Marie Antoinette, might sit, with a favorite 
maid of honor or two, at her embroidery. Through these 
apartments, all the ''home" she had had in the palace, a 
terrified woman fled to gain a secret door of escape, while 
the marauders, the delegation from Paris, were yelling 
and raging for her blood in the corridors and state apart- 
ments. 

If this row of snug resting and working rooms were 
the ''Innermost" of her domestic life, the Petit Trianon 
was her play-ground. It is a pretty villa, not more than 
half as large as the Grand Trianon built for Madame de 
Maintenon by Louis XIV. Napoleon I. had a suite of 
small apartments in the Petit Trianon — study, salon, 
bath and dressing-rooms, and bed-chamber. They are 
furnished as he left them, even to the hard bed and round, 
uncompromising pillows. All are hung and upholstered 
with yellow satin brocade ; the floors are polished and 
waxed, uncarpeted, save for a rug laid here and there. A 
door in the arras communicates with the Empress' apart- 
ments. The villa was built by Louis XV. for the Du 
Barry, but interests us chiefly because of Marie Antoi- 
nette's love for it. Her spinnet is in the salon where she 



158 'LOITERINGS JN PLEASANT PATHS. 

received only personal and intimate friends. It is a com- 
mon-looking affair, the case of inlaid woods ornamented 
with brass handles and corners. The keys are discolored 
— some of them silent ; the others yielded discordant 
tinklings as we touched them with reverent fingers. Her 
work-table is in another room. Her bed is spread with an 
embroidered satin coverlet, once white. Her monogram 
and a crown were worked near the bottom. The stitches 
were cut out by revolutionary scissors, but their imprint 
remains, enabling one to trace clearly the design. In this 
room hang her portrait and that of her son, the lost 
Dauphin, a lovely little fellow, with large, dark-blue eyes 
like his mother's, and chestnut hair, falling upon a wide 
lace collar. His coat is blue ; a strap of livelier blue 
crosses his chest to meet a sword-belt ; a star shines upon 
his left breast, and he carries a rapier jauntily under his 
arm. His countenance is sweet and ingenuous, but there 
is a shading of pensiveness or thought in the expression 
wliich is unchildlike. It was easy and pleasant to picture 
him running up and down the marble stairs, and filling 
the now uninhabited rooms with boyish talk and mirtli. 
It was yet easier to reproduce in imagination the figures 
of mother and children m the avenues leading to the 
Swiss village, her favorite and latest toy. 

This is quite out of sight of palace and villas. The in- 
tervening park was verdant and bright as with June suns, 
although the season was November, and the sere leaves 
were falling about us. A miniature lake and the islet in 
the middle, a circular marble temple upon the island, giv- 
ing cover to a nude nymph or goddess, Avere there, when 
the light steps of royal mother and children skimmed 
along the path, she, in her shepherdess hat, laughing and 
jesting with attendants in sylvan dress. The day was very 
still with the placid melancholy that consists in our coun- 



VERSAILLES — P^RE LACHAISE. 1 59 

try with Indian summer. The smell of withering leaves 
hung in the air, spiciest in the sunny reaches of the wind- 
ing road, almost too powerful in shaded glens, heaped 
with yellow and brown masses. We met but two people 
in our walk — an old peasant bent low under a bundle of 
faggots, and an older woman in a red cloak, who may have 
been a gypsy. The woods are well kept, the brushwood 
cut out, and the trees, the finest in the vicinity of Paris, 
carefully pruned of decaying boughs. We saw the village 
between their boles long before reaching the outermost 
building — a mill, with peaked gables and antique chim- 
neys, the hoary stones overgrown with ivy. We mounted 
the flight of steps leading, on the outside, to the second 
story ; shook the door, in the hope that it might, through 
inadvertence, have been left unlocked. Hollow echoes 
from empty rooms answered. Bending over the balus- 
trade, we looked down at the little water-wheel, warped 
by dryness ; at the channel that once led supplies to it 
from the lake hard by. A close body of woods formed 
the background of the deserted house. In the water of 
the lake were reflected the gray and moss-green stones ; 
barred windows ; the clinging cloak of ivy ; our own forms 
— the only moving objects in the picture. Louis XVI., 
amateur locksmith for his own pleasure, played miller 
here to gratify his wife's whim, grinding tiny sacks of 
real corn, and taking pains to become more floury in an 
hour than a genuine miller would have made himself in 
six weeks, in order to give vraisemblance to the play en- 
acted by the queen and her coterie. Around the bend of 
the pond lay the larger cottages which served as kitch- 
en, dining, and ball-rooms. All are built of stone, with 
benches at the doors where peasants might rest at noon 
or evening ; all are clothed with ivy ; all closed and locked. 
We skirted the lake to get to the laiterie, or dairy. It is a 



l6o ' LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

one-Storied cottage, with windows in the tiled roof. Long 
French casements and glazed doors allowed us to get a 
tolerable view of the interior. The floor, and the ledges 
running around the room, are marble or smooth stone. 
Within this building court-gallants churned the milk of 
the Swiss cows that grazed in the lakeside glades ; maids 
of honor made curds and whey for the noonday dinner, 
and the leader of the frolic moulded rolls of butter with 
her beautiful hands, attired like a dairy-maid, and train- 
ing her facile tongue to speak peasant patois. The in- 
dustrious ivy climbs to the low-hanging eaves, and, droop- 
ing in long sprays that did not sway in the sleeping air, 
touched the busts of king and queen set upon tall pedes- 
tals, the one between the two windows in the side of the 
house, the other between the glass doors of the front ga- 
ble. An observatory tower, with railed galleries encirc- 
ling the first and third stories, is close to the laiterie. 

Many sovereigns in France and elsewhere have had ex- 
pensive playthings. Few have cost the possessors more 
dearly than did this Swiss hamlet. 

Innocent as the pastimes of miller and dairymaid ap- 
pear to us, the serious student of those times sees plainly 
that the comedy of happy lowly life was a burning, cank- 
ering insult to the apprehension of the starving people to 
whom the reality of peace and plenty in humble homes, 
was a tradition antedating the reign of the Great Louis. 
While their children died of famine, and men prayed 
vainly for work, the profligate court, to maintain whose 
pomp the poor man's earnings were taxed, demeaned 
their queen and themselves in such senseless mummer- 
ies as beguiled Time of weight in the pleasure-grounds 
of the Petit Trianon. 

The Place de la Concorde, from which Marie Antoi- 
nette waved farewell to the Tuileries — dearer to her in 



VERSAILLES — PERE LACHAISE. l6l 

death than it had been in life — is the connecting link be- 
tween the toy-village in the Versailles Park and the Expi- 
atory Chapel, in what was formerly the Cemetery of the 
Madeleine in Paris. Leaving the bustling street, one en- 
ters through a lodge, a garden, cheerful in November, 
with roses and pansies. A broad walk connects the lodge 
and the tomb-like facade of the chapel. On the right and 
left of paved way and turf-borders are buried the Swiss 
Guard, over whose dead bodies the insurgents rushed to 
seize the queen in the Tuileries, when compromise and 
the mockery of royalty were at an end. The chapel is 
small, but handsome. On the right, half-way up its 
length, is a marble group, life-size, of the kneeling king, 
looking heavenward from the scaffold, in obedience to 
the gesture of an angel who addresses him in the last 
words of his confessor — '' Son of St. Louis, ascend to 
Heaven ! " 

Opposite is an exquisite portrait -statue of the queen, 
her sinking figure supported by Religion. Anguish and 
resignation are blended in the beautiful face. Her re- 
gards, like those of the king, are directed upward. The 
features of Religion are Madame Elizabeth's, the faithful 
sister of Louis, who perished by the guillotine May 12, 
1794. Both groups are admirably wrought, and seen in 
the. dim light of the stained windows, impressively life- 
like. 

In the sub-chapel, gained by a winding stair, is an altar 
of black marble in a recess, marking the spot where the 
unfortunate pair were interred after their execution. The 
Madeleine was then unfinished, and in the orchard back 
of it the dishonored corpse of Louis, and, later, of his 
widow, were thrust into the ground with no show of re- 
spect or decency. The coffins were of plain boards ; the 
severed heads were placed between the feet ; quicklime 



l62 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

was thrown in to hasten decomposition ; the grave or pit 
was ten feet deep, and the soil carefully leveled. No pains 
were spared to efface from the face of the earth all traces 
of the victims of popular fury. But loving eyes noted 
the sacred place ; kept watch above the mouldering re- 
mains until the nation turned to mourn over the slaughter 
wrought by their rage. Husband and wife were removed 
to the vaults of the Kings of France, at St. Denis, in 1817, 
by Louis Philippe. The consciences of himself and peo- 
ple fermented actively about that time, touching the erec- 
tion of a monument expiatoire. The Place de la Concorde 
was re-christened '' Place de Louis XVI.," with the ulte- 
rior design of raising upon the site of his scaffold, obelisk 
or church, which should bear his name and be a token of 
his subjects' contrition. To the like end, the king of the 
French proposed to change the Temple de la Gloire of 
Napoleon I. — otherwise the Madeleine — into an expiatory 
church, dedicated to the manes of Louis XVI., Louis XVII. 
(the little Dauphin), Marie Antoinette, and Madame Eliz- 
abeth, a hapless quartette whose memory needed rehabili- 
tation at the hands of the reigning monarch and his loving 
subjects, if ever human remorse could atone for human 
suffering. 

The Chapelle Expiatoire is the precipitate and settle- 
ment into crystallization of this mental and moral inqui- 
tude. 

*' No, madame ! " said the custodian, in a burst of con- 
fidence. ^'We have not here the corpses of Louis XVI. 
and his queen. Their skeletons repose at St. Denis. But 
only their bones ! For there are here " — touching the black 
marble altar — "the earth, the lime, the clothing that en- 
closed their bodies. And upon this spot was their deep, 
deep grave. People of true sensibility prefer to weep 
here rather than in the crypt of St. Denis ! " 



VERSAILLES — PERE LACHAISE. 1 63 

On the same day we saw St. Roch. Bonaparte planted 
his cannon upon the broad steps, October 3, 1795, and 
fired into the solid ranks of the advancing Royalists— in- 
surgents now in their turn. The front of the church is 
scarred by the balls that returned the salute. The chief 
ornament of the interior is the three celebrated groups of 
statuary in the Chapelle du Calvaire. These— the Cruci- 
fixion, Christ on the Cross, and the Entombment — are 
marvelous in inception and execution. The small chapel 
enshrining them becomes holy ground even to the Prot- 
estant gazer. They moved us as statuary had never done 
before. Returning to them, once and again, from other 
parts of the church, to look silently upon the three stages 
in the Story that is above all others, we left them finally 
with lagging tread and many backward glances. At the 
same end of the church is the altar at which Marie Antoi- 
nette received her last communion, on the day of her 
death. 

''Were they here, then?" we asked of the sacristan, 
pointing to the figures in the Chapelle du Calvaire. 

'' But certainly, Madame ! They are the work, the most 
famous, of Michel Anguier, who died in 1686. The queen 
saw them, without doubt." 

While the bland weather lasted, we drove out to Pere 
Lachaise, passing en roitte, the Prison de la Roquette, in 
which condemned prisoners are held until executed. The 
public place of execution is at its gates. This was a 
slaughter-pen during the Commune. The murdered citi- 
zens,— the Archbishop of Paris, and the cure of the Made- 
leine among them, — were thrown into the fosses cof?tnnmes 
of Pere Lachaise. These common ditches, each capable 
of containing fifty coffins, are the last homes donated by 
the city of Paris to the poor who cannot buy graves for 
themselves. One is thankful to learn that the venerable 



l64 -LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Archbishop and his companions were soon granted worthier 
burial. Our cocJier told us what may, or may not be true, 
that the last victim of the guillotine suffered here ; likewise 
that one of the fatal machines is still kept within the walls 
ready for use. 

For a mile — perhaps more — before reaching Pere La- 
chaise, the streets are lined with shops for the exhibition 
and sale of flowers, — a few natural, many artificial, — 
wreaths of immortelles, yellow, white and black, and an 
incredible quantity of bugle and bead garlands, crosses, 
anchors, stars and other emblematic devices. Windows, 
open doors, shelves and pavement are piled with them. 
Plaster lambs and doves and cherubs, porcelain ditto ; 
small glazed pictures of deceased saints, angels and other 
creatures ; sorrowing women weeping over husbands' 
death-beds, empty cradles and little graves, — all framed in 
gilt or black wood, — are among the merchandise offered 
to the grief-stricken. A few of the mottoes wrought into 
the immortelle and bead decorations will give a faint idea 
of the " Frenchiness" of the display. 

^^ Helas r' ^' A ma ckere femme^'' ^'' Cher e petite,'' ^^A/if 
mo7i amie,'' ^^ Bie7t-aimee" " Cy^er/V," and every given Chris- 
tian name known in the Gallic tongue. 

The famous Cemetery, which contains nearly 20,000 
monuments, great and small, is a curious spectacle to those 
who have hitherto seen only American and English burial- 
grounds. Pere Lachaise is a city of the dead ; not '' God's 
Acre," or the garden in which precious seed have been 
committed to the dark, warm, sweet earth in hope of 
Spring-time and deathless bloom. The streets are badly 
paved and were so muddy Avhen we were there, that we 
had to pick our steps warily in climbing the steep avenue 
beginning at the gates. Odd little constructions, like 
stone sentry-boxes, rise on both sides of the way. Most 



VERSAILLES — P^RE LACHAISE. 165 

of these are surrounded by railings. All have grated doors, 
through which one can survey the closets within. Flag- 
ging floors, plain stone, or plastered walls and ceilings ; low 
shelves or seats at the back, where the meditative mourner 
may sit to weep her loss, or kneel to pray for the beloved 
soul, — these are the same in each. The monotony of the 
row is broken occasionally by a chapel, an enlarged and or- 
nate edition of the sentry-box, or a monument resembling 
in form those we were used to see in other cemeteries. The 
avenues are rather shady in summer. At our November 
visit, the boughs were nearly bare, and rotting leaves, 
trampled in the mud of the thoroughfares, made the place 
more lugubrious. Really cheerful or beautiful it can never 
be. The flowers set in the narrow beds between tombs 
and curbings, scarcely alleviate the severely business-like 
aspect. Still less is this softened by the multitudinous 
bugled and beaded ornaments depending from the spikes 
of iron railings, cast upon sarcophagi, and the marble 
ledges within the gates. All Soul's Day was not long past 
and we supposed this accounted for the superabundance 
of these offerings. We were informed subsequently that 
there are seldom fewer than we saw at this date. About 
and within one burial-closet — a family-tomb — we counted 
fifty-seven bugle wreaths of divers patterns, in all the hues 
of the rainbow, besides the conventional black-and-white. 
The parade of mortuary millinery, for a while absurd, be- 
tame presently sickening, horribly tawdry and glistening. 
It was a relief to laugh heartily and naturally when we 
saw a child pick up a garland of shiny purple beads, and 
set it rakishly upon the bust of Joseph Fourier, the in- 
clination of the decoration over the left eyebrow making 
him seem to wink waggishly at us, in thorough enjoyment 
of the situation. 

We wanted to be thoughtful and respectful in presence 



l66 ,LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

of the dead, but the achievement required an effort which 
was but lamely successful. Dispirited we did become, by 
and by, and fatigued with trampling up steep lanes and 
cross-alleys. Carriages cannot enter the grounds, and 
even a partial exploration of them is a weariness. We 
drooped like the weeping-willow set beside Alfred de Mus- 
set's tomb, before we reached it. An attenuated and ob- 
stinately disconsolate weeper is the tree planted in obedi- 
ence to his request : — 

*' Mes chers amis, quand je mdurrai, 
Plantez un saule au cimitiere ; 
J'aime son feuillage eplore, 
La paleur m'en est douce et chere ; 
Et son ombre sera legere, 
A la terre ou je dormirai." 

The conditions of the sylvan sentinel whose sprays 
caressed his bust, were, when we beheld it, comically 
"according to order." There were not more than six 
branches upon the tree, a few sickly leaves hanging to 
each. At its best the foliage must have been ''pale" and 
the shade exceedingly 'Might." 

The Gothic chapel roofing in the sarcophagus of Abe- 
lard and Helo'ise, was built of stones from the convent of 
Paraclet, of which Heloise was, for nearly half a century, 
Lady Superior. From this retreat she addressed to her 
monkish lover letters that might have drawn tears of blood 
from the heart of a flint ; which impelled Abelard to the 
composition of quires of homilies upon the proper man- 
agement of the nuns in her charge, including by-laws for 
conventual housewifery. Under the pointed arches the 
mediaeval lovers rest, side by side, although they were 
divided in death by the lapse of tv.^enty-tv/o years. Sar- 
cophagus and effigies are very old, having been long kept 



VERSAILLES — PfeRE LACHAISE. 167 

among the choice antiquities of a Parisian museum and 
placed in Pere Lachaise by the order of Louis Philippe. 
The monument was originally set up in the Abbey of 
Heloise near the provincial town of Nogent-sur-Seine, 
where the rifled vault is still shown. Prior and abbess 
slumbered there for almost seven centuries. Their statues 
are of an old man and old woman, vestiges of former 
beauty in the chiseled features ; more strongly drawn 
lines of thought and character in brow, lip, and chin. They 
wear their conventual robes. 

Peripatetic skeletons and ashes are d la mode in this 
polite country. The ''manes," poets and epitaphs are so 
fond of apostrophizing, should have lively wits and faith- 
ful memories if they would keep the run of their mortal 
parts. 

Marshal Ney has neither sentry-box, nor chapel, nor 
memorial-tablet. His grave is within a square plat, railed 
in by an iron fence. The turf is fresh above him, and late 
autumn roses, lush and sweet, were blooming around. The 
ivy, which grows as freely in France as brambles and 
bind-weed with us, made a close, green wall of the railing. 
We plucked a leaf, as a souvenir. It is twice as large as 
our ivy-leaves, shaded richly with bronze and purple, and 
whitely veined, and there were hundreds as fine upon the 
vine. 

One path is known as that of the *' artistes," and is much 
frequented. Upon Talma's head-stone is carved a tragic 
mask. Music weeps over the bust of Bellini and beside 
Chopin's grave, and, in bas-relief, crowns the sculptured 
head of Cherubini. Bernardin de St. Pierre lies near 
Boieldieu, the operatic composer. Denon, Napoleon's 
companion in Egypt, and general director of museums 
under the Empire, sits in bronze, dark and calm as a dead 
Pharaoh, in the neighbo-rhood of Madame Blanchard, the 



1 68 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

aeronaut, who perished in her last ascent. There was a 
picture of the disaster in Parley's Magazine, forty years 
ago. I remembered it — line for line, the bursting flame 
and smoke, the falling figure — at sight of the inscription 
setting forth her title to artistic distinction. Upon another 
avenue lie La Fontaine, Moliere, — (another itinerant, re- 
interred here in 1817,) Laplace, the astronomer, and 
Manuel Garcia, the gifted father of a more gifted daugh- 
ter, — Malibran. ''Around the corner," we stumbled, as 
it were, upon the tomb of Madame de Genlis. 

Rachel sleeps apart from Gentile dust in the Jewish 
quarter of Pere Lachaise. Beside the bare stone closet 
above her vault is a bush of laurestinus, with glossy green 
leaves. The floor inside was literally heaped with visiting- 
cards, usually folded down at one corner to signify that he 
or she, paying the compliment of a post-mortem morning- 
call, deposited the bit of pasteboard in person. There 
was at least a half bushel of these touching tributes to 
dead-and-gone genius. No flowers, natural or false, no 
immortelles — no bugle wreaths ! Only visiting-cards, many 
engraved with coronets and other heraldic signs, tremen- 
dously imposing to simple Republicans. We examined fifty 
or sixty, returning them to the closet, with scrupulous 
care, after inspection. Some admirers had added to name 
and address, a complimentary or regretful phrase that 
would have titillated the insatiate vanity of the deceased, 
could she have read it, — wounded to her death as she had 
been by the success of her rival Ristori. Her votaries 
may have had this reminiscence of her last days in mind, 
and a shadowy idea that her " manes," in hovering about 
her grave, would be cognizant of their compassionate 
courtesies. 

Most of the offerings were from what we never got out 
of the habit of styling "foreigners." There were a few 



VERSAILLES — PfeRE LACHAISE. 169 

snobbish-looking English cards, — one with a sentence, con- 
siderately scribbled in French — ^^Mille et milk compliments.'" 
So far as our inspection went, there was not one that bore 
an American address. Nor did we leave ours as excep- 
tions to this deficiency in National appreciation of genius 
and artistic power — or National paucity of sentimentality. 
8 




CHAPTER XIII. 

Southward-Bound, 

O NOT go to Rome ! " friends at home had im- 
plored by letter and word of mouth, prior to our 
sailing from the other side. English acquaint- 
ances and friends caught up the cry. In Paris, it swelled 
into impassioned adjuration, reiterated in so many forms, 
and at times so numerous and unseasonable that we ner- 
vously avoided the remotest allusion to the Eternal City in 
word. But sleeping and waking thoughts were tormented 
by mental repetitions that might, or might not be the whis- 
pers of guardian angels. 

** Do not go to Rome ! Do not thou or you go to Rome ! 
Do not ye or you go to Rome ! " 

Thus ran the changes in the burden of admonition and 
thought. Especially, '' Do not ye or you go to Rome ! " 

*' Go, if you are bent upon it, me dear ! " said a kind 
English lady. ''Your husband is robust, and it may be as 
you and he believe, that your health requires a mild and 
sedative climate. But do not take your dear daughters. 
The air of Rome is deadly to young English and American 
girls. Quite a blight, I assure you ! " 

Said one of our Paris bankers to Caput : — '' I can have 
no conceivable interest in trying to turn you aside from 
your projected route, but it is my duty in the cause of 
common humanity to warn you that you are running into 



SOUTHWARD-BOUND. I/I 

the jaws of danger in taking your family to Rome. We 
have advices to-day that the corpses of thirteen Americans, 
most of them women and children, — all dead within the 
week — are now lying at Maquay and Hooker's in Rome 
awaiting transportation to America." 

This was appalling. But matters waxed serious in Paris, 
too. Indian Summer over, it began to rain. In Scriptural 
phrase, — "Neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, 
and no small tempest " — of mist, sleet and showers — ''lay 
upon us. " Deprived of what was my very life — (what little 
of it remained,) daily exercise in the open air, the cough, 
insomnia and other terrors that had driven us into exile, 
increased upon me rapidly and alarmingly. Weakening 
day by day, it was each morning more difficult to rise and 
look despairingly from my windows upon the watery 
heavens and flooded streets. Sunshine and soft airs were 
abroad somewhere upon the earth. Find them we must 
before it should be useless to seek them. The leader of 
the household brigade ordered a movement along the 
whole line. Like a brood of swallows, we fled southward. 
" Certainly to Florence. Probably to Rome. Should the 
skies there prove as ungenial as those of France, — as a 
last and forlorn hope — to Algiers." Such were the terms 
of command. 

We arrived in Florence, the Beautiful, at ten o'clock of 
a December night. The facchini and cocchieri at the station 
stared wildly when we addressed them in French, became 
frantic under the volley of Latin Caput hurled upon them, 
in the mistaken idea that they would understand their an- 
cestral tongue. Italian was, as yet, an unknown realm to 
us, and our ignominious refuge was in the universal lan- 
guage of signs. Porters and coachmen were quick in 
interpretation, much of their intercourse with their fellow- 
countrymen being carried on in like manner. The lug- 



172 ' LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

gage was identified, piece by piece, and fastened upon the 
carriages. The human freight was bestowed within, and 
as Prima dropped upon the seat beside me, she lifted her 
hand in a vow : 

** I begin the study of Italian to-morrow ! " 

It was raining steadily ; the streets were ill-lighted, the 
pavements wretched ; and when a slow drive through tor- 
tuous ways brought us to our desired haven, the house was 
so full that comfortable accommodations for so large a 
party could not be procured. The proprietor kindly and 
courteously directed us to a neighboring hotel, which he 
could conscientiously recommend, and sent an English- 
speaking waiter — a handsome, quick-witted fellow — to 
escort us thither and" see that we were not cheated." 

** Babes in the woods — nothing more ! " grumbled the 
high-spirited young woman at my elbow. 

She was the mistress of a dozen telling Italian words 
before she slept. Our bed-rooms and adjoining j^/^^^ were 
spacious, gloomy, and cheerless to a degree unknown out 
of Italy. The hotel had been a palace in the olden times, 
after the manner of three-fourths of the Italian houses of 
entertainment. Walls and floor were of stone, the chill of 
the latter striking through the carpets into our feet. My 
chamber, the largest in the suite, contained two bier-like 
beds set against the far wall, bureau, dressing-table, wash- 
stand, six heavy chairs, and a sofa, and, between these, a 
desolate moor of bare carpeting before one could gain the 
hearth. This was a full brick in width, bounded in front 
by a strip of rug hardly wider — at the back by a triangu- 
lar hole in the wall, in which a chambermaid proceeded, 
upon our entrance, to build a wood fire. First, a ball of 
resined shavings was laid upon the bricks ; then, a handful 
of dried twigs ; then, small round sticks ; then, diminutive 
logs, split and seasoned, and we had a crackling, fizzing, 



SOUTHWARD-BOUND. 173 

conceited blaze that swept all the heat with it up the 
chimney. The Invaluable's spirit-lamp upon the side- 
table had more cheer in it. If set down upon the pyramid 
of Cheops, and told we were to camp there overnight, 
this feminine Mark Tapley would, in half-an-hour, have 
made herself and the rest of us at home ; got up ** a nice 
tea ;" put Boy to bed and sat down beside him, knitting 
in hand, as composedly as in our nursery over the sea. 

Her "comfortable cup of tea" was ready by the time 
our supper was brought up — a good supper, hot, and 
served with praiseworthy alacrity. We ate it, and drank 
our tea, and looked at the fire, conscious that we ought 
also to feel it, it was such a brisk, fussy little conflagration. 
Landlord and servants were solicitous and attentive ; hot- 
water bottles were tucked in at the foot of each frozen bed, 
and we sought our pillows in tolerable spirits. 

Mine were at ebb-tide again next morning, as, lying 
upon the sofa, mummied in shawls, a duvet^ covered with 
satinet and filled with down, on the top of the heap, yet 
cold under them all, my eyes wandered from the imperti- 
nent little fire that did not thaw the air twelve inches 
beyond the hearth, to the windows so clouded with rain I 
could hardly see the grim palace opposite, and I wondered 
why I was there. Was the game worth the expensive 
candle ? Why had I not stayed at home and died like a 
Christian woman upon a spring-mattress, swathed in thick 
blankets, environed by friends and all the appliances con- 
ducive to euthanasia ? I had begged the others to go out 
on a tour of business and sight-seeing. I should be quite 
comfortable with my books, and the thought of loneliness 
was preposterous. Was I not in Florence ? Knowing 
this, it would be a delight to lie still and dream. In truth, 
I was thoroughly miserable, yet would • have died sooner 
than confess it. I did not touch one of the books laid 



174 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

upon the table beside me, because, I said to my moody 
self, it was too cold and I too languid to put my hand out 
from the load of wraps. 

There was a tap at the door. It unclosed and shut 
again softly. An angel glided over the Siberian desert of 
carpet — before I could exclaim, bent down and kissed me. 

*'Oh!" I sighed, in hysterical rapture. *'I did not 
know you were in Italy ! " 

She was staying in the hotel at which we had applied 
for rooms the night before, and the handsome interpreter. 
Carlo, had reported our arrival to the Americans in the 
house. 

Shall I be more glad to meet her in heaven than I was 
on that day to look upon the sweet, womanly face, and 
hear the cooing voice, whose American intonations touched 
my heart to melting ? She sat with me all the forenoon, 
the room growing warmer each hour. Her party — also a 
family one — had now been abroad more than a year. The 
invalid brother, her especial charge, was wonderfully bet- 
ter for the travel and change of climate. He was far 
more ill than I when they left home. Of course I would 
get well ! Why not, with such tender nurses and the dear 
Lord's blessing ? No ! it did not ** rain always in Flor- 
ence ;" but the rainy season had now set in, and *' Frederic 
and I are going to Rome next week." I question if she 
ever named herself, even in thought or prayer, without 
the prefix of ** Frederic." 

'' To Rome ! " cried I, eagerly. ^^ Dare you I " 

My story of longing, discouragement, dreads — that had 
darkened into superstitious presentiments — followed. The 
day went smoothly enough after the confession, and the 
reassurances that it elicited. We secured smaller and 
brighter bed-rooms, and almost warmed them by ruinously 
dear fires, devouring as they did basketful after basketful 



SOUTHWARD-BOUND. 175 

of the Lilliputian logs. It was the business of ohq facchino 
to feed the holes in the walls of the three rooms we in- 
habited in the day-time. Other friends called — cordial 
and lavish of kind offices and offers as are compatriots 
when met upon foreign soil. One family — old, old friends 
■of Caput — had, although now resident in Florence, lived 
for a year in Rome, and laughed to scorn our fears of the 
climate. They rendered us yet more essential service in 
suggestions as to clothing, apartments, and general habits 
of life in Central Italy. To the adoption of these w^e 
were, I believe, greatly indebted for the unbroken hr-'th 
which was our portion as a household during our winter 
in the dear old city. 

We were in Florence ten days. Nine were repetitions, 
*'to be continued," of such weather as we had left in 
Paris. One was so deliciously lovely that, had not the 
next proved stormy, we should have postponed our depar- 
ture. We made the most of the sunshine, taking a car- 
riage, morning and afternoon, for drives in the outskirts 
of the town and In the suburbs, which must have given 
her the name of bella. The city proper is undeniably and 
irremediably ugly. The streets are crooked lanes, in 
which the meeting of two carriages drives foot-passengers 
literally to the wall. There are no sidewalks other than 
the few rows of cobble-stones slanting down from the 
houses to the gutter separating them from the middle of 
the thoroughfare. The far-famed palaces are usually 
built around courtyards, and present to the street walls 
sternly blank, or frowning with grated windows. If, at 
long intervals, one has snatches through a gateway of 
fountains and conservatories, they make the more tedious 
block after block of lofty edifices that shut out light from 
the thread-like street — shed chill with darkness into these 
dismal wells. This is the old city in its winter aspect. 



176 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Wider and handsome streets border the Arno — a shiggish, 
turbid creek — and the modern quarters are laid out gener- 
ously in boulevards and squares. We modified our opin- 
ions materially the following year, when weather and 
physical state were more propitious to favorable judg- 
ment. Now, we were impatient to be gone, intolerant of 
the praises chanted and written of Firenze in so many ages 
and tongues. The happiest moment of our stay within 
her gates was when we shook off so much of her mud as 
the action could dislodge from our feet and seated our- 
selves in a railway carriage for Rome. 

It was a long day's travel, but the most entrancing we 
had as yet known. Vallambrosa, Arezzo (the ancient Ar- 
retiuni)^ Cortona ; Lake Thrasymene ! The names leaped 
up at us from the pages of our guide-books. The places 
for which they stood lay to the right and left of the pro- 
saic railway, like scenes in a phantasmagoria. We had, 
as was our custom when it could be compassed by fee or 
argument, secured a compartment to ourselves. There 
were no critics to sneer, or marvel at our raptures and 
quotations. Boy, setat four, whose preparation for the 
foreign tour had been readings, recitations, and songs 
from '* Lays of Ancient Rome," in lieu of Mother Goose 
and Baby's Opera, and whose personal hand-luggage con- 
sisted of a very dog-eared copy of the work, illustrated by 
stiff engravings from bas-reliefs upon coins and stones — 
bore a distinguished part in our talk. He would see 
''purple Apennine," and was disgusted at the common- 
place roofs of Cortona that no longer 

*' Lifts to heaven 
Her diadem of towers." 

At mention of the famous lake, he scrambled down from 
his seat ; made a rush for the window. 



SOUTHWARD-BOUND. 1 7/ 

''Papa! is //^<^/ ' reedy Thrasymene ? ' Where is 'dark 
Verbenna ? ' " 

As a reward for remembering his lesson so well, he was 
lifted to the paternal knee, and while the train slowly 
wound along the upper end of the lake, heard the story 
of the battle between Hannibal and Flaminius, upon the 
weedy banks, B. C. 217 ; saw the defile in which the brave 
consul was entrapped ; where, for hours, the slaughter of 
the snared and helpless troops went on, until the little 
river we presently crossed was foul with running blood. 
It is Sanguinetto to this day. 

The vapors of morning were lazily curling up from the 
lake ; dark woods crowd down to the edge on one side ; 
hills dressed in gray olive orchards border another ; a 
bold promontory on the west is capped by an ancient 
tower, A monastery occupies one of the three islands 
that dot the surface. A light film, like the breath upon a 
mirror, veiled the intense blue of the sky — darkened the 
waters into slaty purple. 

A dense fog filled the basin between the hills on the 
May-day when Rome's best consul and general marched 
into it and to his death. 

On we swept, past Perugia, capital of old Umbria, one 
of the twelve chiefest Etruscan cities ; overcome and sub- 
jugated by the Roman power B. C. 310. It w^as g, battle- 
field while Antony and Octavius contended for the mas- 
tership of Rome ; was devastated by Goth, Ghibelline and 
Guelph ; captured successively by Savoyard, Austrian, 
and Piedmontese. It is better known to this age than 
by all these events as the home of Perugino, the master of 
Raphael, and father of the new departure from the an- 
cient school of painting. The view became, each moment, 
more novel because more Italian. The roads were scant- 
ily shaded by pollarded trees — mostly mulberry — from 



173 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

whose branches depended long festoons of vines, linking 
them together, without a break, for miles. Farms were 
separated by the same graceful lines of demarcation. 
Other fences were rare. We did not see " a piece of bad 
road," or a mud-hole, in Italy. The road and bridge- 
builders of the world bequeathed to their posterity one 
legacy that has never worn out, which bids fair to last 
w^iile the globe swings through space. As far as the eye 
could reach along the many country highways we crossed 
that day, the broad, smooth sweep commanded our won- 
dering admiration. The grade from crown to sides is so 
nicely calculated that rain-water neither gathers in pools 
in the road, nor gullies the bed in running off. Vehicles 
are not compelled, by barbarous '' turnpiking," to keep 
the middle of the track, thus cutting deep ruts other 
wheels must follow. It is unusual, in driving, to strike 
a pebble as large as an egg. 

The travellers upon these millennial thoroughfares 
were not numerous. Peasants on foot drove herds of 
queer black swine, small and gaunt, in comparison with 
our obese porkers — vicious-looking creatures, with pointed 
snouts and long legs. Women, returning from or going 
to market, had baskets of green stuff strapped upon their 
backs, and often children in their arms ; bare-legged men 
in conical hats and sheepskin coats, trudged through 
clouds of white dust, raised by clumsy carts, to which 
were attached the cream-colored oxen of the Campagna. 
Great, patient beasts they are, the handsomest of their 
race, with incredibly long horns symmetrically fashioned 
and curved. These horns are sold everywhere in Italy as 
a charm against *' the evil eye " — the dread of all classes. 

About the middle of the afternoon we descended into 
the valley of the Tiber — the cleft peak of Soracte (Hora- 
ce's Soracte !) visible from afar like a rent clou-d. We 



SOUTHWARD-BOUND. 1 79 

crossed a bridge built by . Augustus ; halted for a min- 
ute at the Sabine town that gave Numa Pompilius to 
Rome ; watched, with increasing delight, the Sabine and 
Alban Mountains grow into shape and distinctness ; gazed 
oftenest and longest — as who does not ? — at the Dome, 
faint, for a while, as a bubble blown into the haze of the 
horizon — more strongly and nobly defined as we neared 
our goal ; crossed the Anio, upon which Romulus and 
Remus had been set adrift ; made a wide detour that, ap- 
parently, took us away from, not toward the city, and 
showed us the long reaches of the aqueducts, black and 
high, ''striding across the Campagna," in the settling 
mists of evening. Then ensued an odd jumble of ruins 
and modern, unfinished buildings, an alternation, as in- 
congruous, of strait and spacious streets, and we steamed 
slowly into the station. It is near the Baths of Diocle- 
tian, and looks like a very audacious interloper by day- 
light. 

It was dusk when our effects were collected, and they 
and ourselves jolting over miserable pavements toward 
our hotel in the guardianship of a friend who had kindly 
met us at the station. By the time we had reached the 
quarters he had engaged for us ; had waited some min- 
utes in a reception-room in the rez-de-chaussee that felt and 
smelt like a newly-dug grave ; had ascended two flights of 
obdurate stone stairs, cruelly mortifying to feet cramped 
and tender with long sitting and the hot-water footstools 
of the railway carriage ; had sat for half an hour, shawled 
and hatted, in chambers more raw and earthy of odor 
than had been the waiting-room, watching the contest 
betwixt flame and smoke in the disused chimneys, we dis- 
covered and admitted that we were tired to death. Fur- 
thermore, that the sensation of wishing oneself really and 
comfortably deceased, upon attaining this degree of phys- 



l80 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT TATIIS. 

ical depression, is the same in a city almost thirty centu- 
ries old, and in a hunter's camp in the Adirondacks. 
Even Caput looked vexed, and wondered audibly and re- 
peatedly why fires were not ready in rooms that were 
positively engaged and ordered to be made comfortable 
twenty-four hours ago ; and the Invaluable, depositing 
Boy, swathed in railway rugs, upon one of the high, sin- 
gle beds, lest his feet should freeze upon *^the murder- 
some cold floors," ''guessed these Eyetalians aren't much, 
if any of fire-makers." Thereupon, she went down upon 
her knees to coax into being the smothering blaze, dying 
upon a cold hearth under unskilfully-laid fuel. The car- 
pet in the salon we had likewise bespoken was not put 
down until the afternoon of the following day. The fires 
in all the bed-rooms smoked. By eight o'clock we extin- 
guished the last spark and went to bed. In time, we took 
these dampers and reactions as a part of a hard day's 
work ; gained faith in our ability to live until next morn- 
ing. Being unseasoned at this period, the first night in 
Rome was torture while we endured it, humiliating in the 
retrospect. 

It rained from dawn to sundown of the next day. Not with 
melancholy persistency, as in Florence, as if the weather 
were put out by contract and time no object, but in pas- 
sionate, fitful showers, making rivers of the streets, sepa- 
rated by intervals of sobbing and moaning winds and angry 
spits of rain-drops. We stayed in-doors, and, under com- 
pulsion, rested. The fires burned better as the chimneys 
warmed to their work ; we unpacked a trunk or two ; wrote 
letters and watched, amused and curious, the proceedings 
of two men and two women who took eight hours to stretch 
and tack down the carpet in our salofi. Each time one of us 
peeped, or sauntered in to note and report progress, all 
four of the work-people intermitted their ceaseless jargon 



SOUTHWARD-BOUND. l8l 

to nod and smile, and say ^^Doinane!" Young travelled 
in Italy before he wrote " To-morrow, and to-morrow, and 
to-morrow ! " 

Our morrow was brilliantly clear, and freshness like the 
dewy breath of early Spring was in the air. Our first visit 
was, of course, to our bankers, and while Caput went in to 
inquire for letters (and to learn, I may add, that the story 
of the thirteen American corpses was unsupported by the 
presence, then or during the entire season, of a single one), 
we lay back among the carriage-cushions, feeling that we 
drank in the sunshine at every pore — enjoying as children 
or Italians might the various and delightful features of the 
scene. 

The sunlight — clarified of all vaporous grossness by the 
departed tempest — in color, the purest amber ; in touch 
and play beneficent as fairy balm, was everywhere. Upon 
the worn stones paving the Piazza di Spagna, and upon the 
Bernini fountain (one of them), the Barcaccia, at the foot 
of the Spanish Steps, — a boat, commemorating the mimic 
naval battles held here by Domitian, when the Piazza was 
a theatre enclosing an artificial lake. Upon beggars loll- 
ing along the tawny-gray Steps, and contadini — boys, 
women, and girls — in fantastic costume, attitudinizing to 
catch the eye of a chance artist. Upon the column, with 
the Virgin's statue on top, Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and 
David at the base, rusty tears, from unsuspected iron veins, 
oozing out of the sides, — decreed by Pius IX. in honor of 
his pet dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Upon the 
big, dingy College of the Propaganda, founded in 1622, 
Barberini bees in bas-relief conspicuous among the archi- 
tectural ornaments. More of Bernini's work. Urban VIII., 
his patron, being a Barberini. Upon the Trinita di Monti 
at the top of the Spanish Staircase, where the nuns sing 
like imprisoned canaries — as sweetly and as monotonously 



I 82 ^OITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

— on Sabbath afternoons, and all the world goes to hear 
them. Upon the glittering windows of shops and hotels 
fronting the Piazza — the centre of English and American 
colonies in Rome. Upon the white teeth and brown faces 
of boys — some beautiful as cherubs — who held up great 
trays of violets for us to buy, and wedded forever our 
memories of the Piazza and this morning with violet scent. 
Upon the wrinkles and rags of old women — some hideous 
as hags — who piped entreaties that we would ^^per Vamoj-e 
di Z>/^"'make a selection from their stock of Venetian 
beads, Naples lava trinkets, and Sorrento wood-work. 
Upon the portly figure and bland countenance of Mr. 
Hooker, coming out to welcome us to the city which has 
given him a home for thirty years, and which he has made 
home-like to so many of his country-people. Lastly, and 
to our fancy most brightly, upon the faces of my Florence 
angel of mercy and her family party, alighting from their 
carriage at the door of the bank, and hurrying up to ex- 
change greetings with us. 

This was our real coming to Rome ! Not the damp and 
despondency of the thirty-six hours lying just behind us ; 
dreariness and doubts never renewed in the five fleet-footed 
months during which we lingered and lived within her 
storied gates. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

Pope, King^ and Forum, 

WAS sorry to leave the hotel, the name of which 
I withhold for reasons that will be obvious pres- 
ently. Not that it was in itself a pleasant cara- 
vansary, although eminently respectable, and much affected 
by Americans and English. Not that the rooms were ever 
warm, although we wasted our substance in fire -building ; 
or that the one dish of meat at luncheon, or the principal 
dessert at dinner, always "went around." We had hired a 
commodious and sunny " appartamento " of seven well-fur- 
nished rooms in Via San Sebastiano — a section of the Piaz- 
za di Spagna — and were anxious to begin housekeeping. 

I did regret to leave, with the probability of never see- 
ing her again — a choice specimen of the Viatrix Americana^ 
a veritable unique, whose seat was next mine at luncheon 
and dinner. Our friendship began through my declaration, 
at her earnest adjuration, of my belief that the "kick- 
shaws," as she called them, offered for our consumption 
were harmless and passably digestible by the Yankee 
stomach. She w^as half-starved, poor thing ! and after this 
I cheerfully fulfilled the office of taster, drawing my salary 
twice /^r diem in the liberal entertainment of her converse 
with me. She had been three-quarters of the way around 
the world, with her husband as banker and escort ; was 
great upon Egyptian donkeys and the domestic entomol- 



1 84 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

ogy of Syria, and could not lisp one word of any dialect 
excepting that of her native "Vairmount" and of her 
adopted State, which we will name — Iowa. 

'* You sight-see so slow ! " was her unintentional allitera- 
tion, on the fifth day of our acquaintanceship. '* Aint bin 
to see a church yet, hev you ? " 

I answered, timidly, that I was waiting to grow stronger. 
*' The churches are so cold in Winter that I shall probably 
put off that part of my sight-seeing until Spring." 

''Good gracious! Be you goin' to spend the winter 
here ? " 

"That is our hope, at present." 

"You'll be bored to death ! You wont see You-rope in 
ten year, if you take it so easy. * We calkerlate to do up 
Rome under a iortm'^/a. We've jest finished up the 
churches. On an averidge of thirty-five a day ! But we 
hed to work lively. Now we're at the villers. One on 'em 
you must see — sick or well. 'Taint so very much of it up- 
stairs. The beautifullest furnitur' I ever see. Gildin' and 
tay-pis/rj, and velvet and picters and freskies, common as 
dirt, as you may say. The gardings a sight to behold. 
You make your husband take you ! Set your foot down, for 
oncet ! " 

" What villa — did you say ? " 

" The Land ! I don't bother with the outlandish names. 
But you'll find it easy. Napoleon Boneypart did some- 
thin' or 'nother ther oncet. Or, his son, or nephey, or 
some of the family. Any way, I do know I never see sech 
winder-curtains anywhere. Thick as a board ! Solid satin. 
No linin's, for I fingered 'em and took a peek at the wrong 
side to be positive. We wound up the churches by goin* 
to see the tomb the Pope's been a buildin' of for himself. 
A kind o' square pit, or cellar right in the middle of the 
church of What's-his-name ? " 



POPE, KING, AND FORUM. 1 85 

" Santa Maria Maggiore ? " 

** That's the feller i You go down by two flights of stun 
steps. One onto each side of the cellar. Its all open on 
top, you understand, on a level with the church-floor, and 
jest veneered with marble. Every color you can think of. 
Floor jest the same. Old Pope Griggory, he aint buried 
yet. Lies 'bove-ground, in a red marble box. He can't be 
buried for good 'tell Pious, he dies. And he must hev the 
same spell o' waitin' for the next one. Ther' must be two 
popes on the top of the yearth at the same time. One live 
and one dead. Thinks-I, when I looked inter the cryp' — as 
they call it — jest a-blazin' and a-dazzlin' with red, blue, 
green and yellow, and polished like a new table-knife 
blade, — If this aint vanity and vexation ! I'd ruther hev 
our fam'ly lot in the buryin' groun' to Meekinses Four 
Corners — (a real nice lot it is ! With only one stun' as yet. 
' To my daughter Almiry Jane, Age^ six months and six 
days,') w^here I could be tucked up, like a lady, safe and 
snug. Oncet for all and no bones about it ! " 

On the tenth and last day of our sojourn at the hotel, 
she went to see the Pope. 

'' May I come inter your sittin'-room ? " was her petition 
at evening. '' I am fairly bustin' to tell you all about it. 
And if we go inter the public parler, them Englishers will 
be makin' fun behind my back. For, you see, ther's con- 
siderable actin' to be done to tell it jest right." 

I took her into o\xx salon ^ established her in an arm-chair, 
and was attentive. I had seen her in her best black silk 
with tire regulation black lace shawl, which generally does 
duty as a veil, pinned to her scanty hair. Ladies attend- 
ing the Pope's levees must dress in black, without bonnets, 
the head being covered by a black veil. When thus at- 
tired, my acquaintance had wound and hung at least half 
a peck of rosaries upon her arms, ^'to have 'em handy for 



1 86 • LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the old cretur's blessin'." I was now to hear how her 
husband had hired at the costumer's the dress-coat pre- 
scribed for gentlemen. 

*' Come down to his heels, if you'll believe me ! He bein' 
a spare man, and by no manner of means tall. Sleeves a 
mile too long. Collar over his ears. A slice of his bald 
head showed atop of it like a new moon ! " 

She stopped to laugh, we all joining in heartily. 

"Mr. Smith from St. Lewis, — he was along and his coat 
was as much too small for him as my husband's was too big 
for him. Mr. Smith daresn't breathe for fear of splittin' it 
down the back." 

I recollected the story of Cyrus and the two coats, and 
restrained the suggestion that they might have exchanged 
garments. 

"Eight francs an hour, they paid — one dollar 'n' sixty 
cents good money, for the use of each of the bothering 
machines. Well ! when we was all got up to kill as it 
were — ('twas some like it !) we druv' off, two carriage-fulls, 
to the Pope's Palace — the Vacumn. Up the marble steps 
we tugged, through five or six monstrous rooms, all pre- 
cious marbled and gilded and tapes/;7<?^/, into a long hall, 
more like a town-meeting house than a parler. Stuffed 
benches along the side, where we all sat down to wait for 
the old man. Three mortal hours, he kept us coolin' of 
our heels after the time advertised for the levy. I hev 
washed an' ironed and churned and done my own house- 
work in my day. I ain't ashamed to say I'd ruther do a 
good day's heft at 'em all, than to pass another sech tire- 
some mornin'. I don't call it mannerly to tell people 
when to come, and then not be ready. Mr. Smith, he 
nearly died in his tight coat with tlie circulation stopped 
into both arms. At last, the door at the bottom of the hall 
was flung open by a fellow in striped breeches, and in /le 



POPE, KING, AND FORUM. 1 8/ 

come. A man in a black gownd to each side on him. He 
is powerful feeble-lookin,' but I will say, aint quite so 
^;2cient as I'd expected to see. He leaned upon the arm of 
one man. Another went 'round the room with 'em, col- 
lectin' of our names to give 'em to him. I forgot to tell 
you that everybody dropped on their knees, the minute 
the door opened and we saw who 'twas. That is, except 
Mr. Smith. He stood straight up, like a brass post. He 
says, ' because American citizens hadn't oughter bend the 
knee to no human man.' /say he was afraid on account 
of the coat. I didn't jest like kneelin' myself. So, I 
saved my conscience by kinder squattirC ! So-fashion ! " 

I was glad '' the Englishers " were not by as she *' made 
a cheese " of her skirts by the side of her chair, and was 
up again in the next breath. 

^^ He wore a white skull-cap and a long white gownd 
belted at the waist. Real broadcloth 'twas. I thought, at 
first, 'twas opery flannel or merino, but when he was a- 
talkin' to them next me, I managed to pinch a fold of it. 
'Twas cloth— high-priced it must 'a been — soft and solid. 
But after all that's said and done, he looks like an ole 
woman and a fat one. Kind face, he hez, and a sort of 
sweet, greasy smile onto it the whole time. He blessed us 
all 'round, and said to the Americans how fond he was of 
their country, and how he hoped we and our children 
would come back to the True Fold. It didn't hurt us 
^ none to hev him say it, you know, and we hed a fair look 
at him while one of the black-gowners was a-translatin' of 
it. Ther' was two sisters of charity or abbesses or nuns, 
or somethin' of that sort there, who dropped flat onto their 
'faces on the bare floor when he got to them, — and kissed 
his slipper. White they was — the slippers, I mean — with 
a gold cross worked onto them. He gave us all his hand 
to kiss, with the seal-ring held up. I aint much in the 



1 88 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

habit of that sort o' thing, and it did go agin my stomach 
a' leetle. So, I tuk his hand, this way" — seizing mine — 
''and smacked my lips over it without them a-touchin' on 
it." 

Again illustrating the narrative by ''acting." 
" I tuk notice 'twas yellow, like old ivory, but flabby, as 
'twas to be counted upon at his time o' life. Well, 'twas 
a sight to see them charitable sisters mumblin' and 
smouchin' over the Holy Father's hand, and sayin' prayers 
like a house a-fire, after they'd done with his slipper and 
got up onto their knees ; and him a-smiling like a pot of 
hair-oil, and a-blessin' on his dear daughters ! One of 
'em had brought along a new white cap for him, em- 
broidered elegant with crosses and crowns and other rig- 
marees, by her own hands, most likely. When she giv it 
to him, still on her knees and a-lookin' up, worshippin'- 
like, he very politely tuk off his old one and put on the 
new. You'd a thought the poor thmg would 'a died on 
that floor of delight when he nodded at her, a smilin' 
sweeter than ever, to show how well it fitted. She'll talk 
about it to herdyin' day as the biggest thing that ever 
happened to her, and never think, I presume, that he must 
have about a hundred caps, given to him by other abbesses, 
kickin' 'round in the Vacuum closets After he'd done up 
the row of visitors — a hundred and odd — and blessed all 
the crosses, and bunches of beads, and flowers, and artifi- 
cial wreaths, and other gimcracks, and all we had on to 
boot, he stopped in the middle of the room and made us a 
little French sermon. Sounded neat— but, of course, I 
didn't get a word of it. Then he raised his hand and pro- 
nounced the benediction, and toddled out. He rocks con- 
siderable in his walk, poor old man ! He ain't long for 
this world ; and, indeed, he hez lived as long as his best 
friends care to hev him." 



POPE, KING, AND FORUM. 1 89 

I have had many other descriptions of the Pope's recep- 
tions, which were semi-weekly in this the last year of his 
life. In the main, these accounts tallied so well with the 
charcoal sketch furnished by my Yankee-Western dame, 
that I have given it as nearly as possible as I received it 
from her lips. 

Victor Emmanuel had reigned in Rome six years when 
we were there. The streets were clean ; the police vigi- 
lant and obliging ; every museum and monastery and 
library was unbarred by the Deliverer of Italy. Protes- 
tant churches were going up within the walls of the city ; 
Protestant service was held wherever and whenever the wor- 
shippers willed, without the visible protection of English 
or American flag. One scarcely recognized in the reno- 
vated capital the Rome of which the travelers of '69 had 
written, so full and free had been the sweep of the tidal 
wave of liberty and decency. The Pope, than whom 
never man had a more favorable opportunity to do all the 
King had accomplished, and more, was a voluntary pris- 
oner in his palace of a thousand rooms, with a beggarly 
retinue of five hundred servants, and stables full of use- 
less state-coaches and horses. Whoever would see him 
shorn of the beams of temporal sovereignty must bend the 
knee to him as spiritual lord. Without attempting to 
regulate the consciences or actions of others, we declined 
to make this show of allegiance. Since attendance in the 
temple of Rimmon was a matter of individual option, we 
stayed without — Anglice — we ^'stopped away." 

Victor Emmanuel we saw frequently in his rides and 
drives about Rome, and at various popular gatherings, 
such as reviews and state gala-days. He was the homeliest 
and best beloved man in his dominions. Somewhat above 
medium height and thick-set, his military bearing, espe- 
cially upon horseback, barely redeemed his figure from 



I90 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

clumsiness. The bull-neck, indicative of the baser quali- 
ties, the story of which is a blot upon his early life, up- 
bore a massive head, carried in manly, kingly fashion. 
His complexion was purple-red ; the skin, rough in grain, 
streaked with darker lines, as if blood-vessels had broken 
under the surface. The firm mouth was almost buried by 
the moustache, heavy and black, curling upward until the 
tips threatened the eyes. The nose thick and retrousse^ 
with wide nostrils, corroborated the testimony of the neck. 
But, beneath the full forehead, the eyes of the master of 
men and of himself shone out so expressively that to meet 
them was to forget blemishes of feature and form, and to 
do justice to the hero of his age — the Father of United 
Italy. 

Prince Umberto was often his father's companion in 
the carriage and on horseback — a much handsomer man, 
whom all regarded with interest as the king of the future, 
with no premonition that the eventful race of the stalwart 
parent was so nearly run, or that the aged Pope, whose 
serious illnesses were reported from week to week, would 
survive to send a message of amity to the monarch's 
death-bed. 

The prettiest sight in Rome was one yet more familiar 
than that of King and heir-apparent driving in a low car- 
riage on the crowded Pincio, unattended by so much as a 
single equerry. The Princess Margherita, the people's 
idol, took her daily airing as any lady of rank might do, 
her little son at her side, accompanied by one or two ladies 
of her modest court, and returning affably the salutations 
of those who met or passed her. The frank confidence of 
the royal family in the love of the people was with her 
a happy unconsciousness of possible danger that stirred 
the most callous to enthusiasm of loyalty. A murmur of 
blessing followed her appearance among the populace. 



POPE, KING, AND FORUM. I91 

They never named her without endearing epithets. Dur- 
ing the Carnival, she drove, attended as I have described, 
down the middle of the Corso, wedged in by a slow-mov- 
ing line of vehicles, the people packing side-walks and 
gutters up to the wheels, a storm of cheering and waving 
caps breaking out along the close files as they recognized 
her. We were abreast of her several times ; saw her bow 
to this side and that, swaying with laughter while she put 
up both hands to ward off the rain of bouquets poured 
upon her from balcony and pavement and carriage, until 
her coach was full above her lap. The small Prince of 
Naples, on his part, stood up and flung flowers vigorously 
to left and right, shouting his delight in the fun. 

We were strolling in the grounds of the Villa Borghese, 
one afternoon, when we espied the scarlet liveries of the 
Princess approaching along the road. That Boy, who was 
ait fait to many tales of her sweetness and charitable deeds, 
might have a better look at one who ranked, in his imagi- 
nation, with the royal heroines of fairy-tales, his father 
lifted him to a seat upon the rail dividing the foot-path 
from the drive. As the Princess came up, our group was 
the only one in the retired spot, and Boy, staring solemnly 
with his great, gray eyes, at the beautiful lady, of his own 
accord pulled off his Scotch cap and made a profound 
obeisance from his perch upon the rail. The Princess 
srriiled brightly and merrily, and, after acknowledging 
Caput's lifted hat by a gracious bend of the head, leaned 
forward to throw a kiss at Boy, as his especial token of 
favor, while her boy took off and waved his cap with a 
nod of good-fellowship. 

One can believe that with this trivial incident in our 
minds it hurt us to read, eighteen months later, of the 
little fellow's terror at sight of the blood streaming 
from his father's arm upon his mother's dress, and at 



192 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the clash over his innocent head of loyal sword and assas- 
sin's dagger. 

The change in the government of Rome is not more ap- 
parent in the improved condition of her streets and in the 
enforcement of sanitary laws unknown or uncared-for un- 
der the ancien regime^ than in the aspect of the ruins — her 
principal attraction for thousands of tourists. The Fo- 
rum Romanum described by Hawthorne and Howells as 
a cow-pasture, broken by the protruding tops of buried 
columns, has been carefully excavated, and the rubbish 
cleared away down to the original floor of the Basilica 
Julia, commenced by Julius Caesar and completed by Au- 
gustus. The boundaries of this, which w^as both Law 
Court and Exchange, are minutely defined in the will of 
Augustus, and the measurements have been verified by 
classic archaeologists. The Forum, as now laid bare, is a 
sunken plain with steep sides, divided into two unequal 
parts by a modern street crossing it. Under this elevated 
causeway, one passes through an arch of substantial ma- 
sonry from the larger division — containing the Comi- 
tium. Basilica Julia, Temple of Castor and Pollux, site of 
Temple of Vesta and the column of Phocas — Byron's 
"nameless column with the buried base," now exposed 
down to the lettered pedestal — into the smaller enclosure, 
flanked by the Tabularium on which is built the modern 
Capitol. On a level with the Etruscan foundation-stones 
of this are the sites of the Tribune and the Rostrum — frag- 
ments of colored marble pavement on which Cicero stood 
when declaiming against Catiline, eight majestic pillars, 
the remains of the Temple of Saturn, three that were a 
part of the Temple of Vespasian, and the arch of Septi- 
mius Severus. Upon the front of the latter is still seen 
the significant erasure made by Caracalla, of his brother 
Geta's name, after the latter had fallen by his — Caracal- 



POPE, KING, AND FORUM. 1 93 

la's — hand. Near the mighty arch is a conical heap of 
earth and masonry, which was the Golden Milestone, the 
centre of Rome and of the world. 

There were not many days in the course of that idyllic 
winter that did not see some of us in the Forum. We 
haunted it early and late ; alighting for a few minutes, en 
route for other places, to run down the slight wooden stair 
leading from the street-level, to verify to our complete satis- 
faction some locality about which we had read or heard, 
or studied since yesterday's visit. Or coming, Vith books 
and children, when the Tramontana was blowing up and 
down every street in the city, and we could find no other 
nook so sheltered and warm as the lee of the wall where 
once ran the row of butchers' stalls, from one of which Vir- 
ginius snatched the knife to slay his daughter. My favorite 
seat was upon the site of the diminutive Temple of Ju- 
lius Caesar (Diviis Julius) the first reared in Rome in honor 
of a mortal. The remnants of the green-and-white pave- 
ment show where lay the body of great Caesar when Mark 
Antony delivered his funeral oration, and where Tiberius 
performed the like pious office over the bier of Augustus. 

The Via Sacra turns at this point, losing itself in one 
direction in the bank, which is the limit of the excava- 
tion, winding in the other through the centre of the ex- 
posed Forum, up to the Capitol foundations. Horace 
was here persecuted by the bore whose portrait is as true 
to life now as it was then. Dux read the complaint aloud 
to us once, with telling effect, substituting *' Broadway " for 
the ancient name. Cicero sauntered along this fashionable 
promenade as a young man waiting for clients ; trod these 
very stones with the assured step of the successful advo- 
cate and famous orator, and upon them dripped the blood 
from his severed hand and head, and the tongue pierced 
by Fulvia's bodkin. Beyond the transversing modern 
9 



194 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Street is a mound, once a judgment-seat. There Brutus 
sat, his face an iron mask, while his sons were scourged 
and beheaded before his eyes. In tlie Comitium was the 
renowned statue of the she-wolf, now in the Capitoline 
Museum, which was struck by lightning at the moment of 
Caesar's murder in Pompey's Theatre. Caesar passed by 
this way on the Ides of March from his house over there 
— the Regia — where were enacted the mysteries of the 
Bona Dea when Pompeia, Calphurnia's predecessor, ad- 
mitted Clodius to the forbidden rites. The soothsayer 
who cried out to him may have loitered in waiting by the 
hillock, which is all that is left of Vesta's Fane, where 
were kept the sacred geese. 

Boy knew each site and meant no disrespect to the 
** potent, grave, and reverend" heroes who used to pace 
the ancient street, while entertaining himself by skipping 
back and forth its entire length so far as it is uncovered, 
^'telling himself a story." He was always happy when 
thus allowed to run and murmur, a trick begun by the 
time he could walk. Content in this knowledge, the In- 
valuable sat upon the steps of the Basilica Julia, knitting 
in hand, guarding a square aperture near the Temple of 
Castor and Pollux, the one danger (to Boy) in the Fo- 
rum. For, looking into it, one saw the rush of foul waters 
below hurrying to discharge themselves through the Clo- 
aca Maxima — built by Numa Pompilius — into the Tiber. 
Here, it is said, yawned the gulf into which Curtius 
leaped, armed and mounted. 

^' A quagmire, drained and filled up by an enterprising 
street contractor of that name," says Caput, to whom this 
and a score of other treasured tales of those nebulously 
olden times are myths with a meaning. 

While I rested apart in my sunny corner, and watched 
the august wraiths trooping past, or pretended to read 



POPE, KING, AND FORUM. I95 

with eyes that did not see the book on my knees, Boy's 
*' story-telling" drifted over to me in rhymical ripples : 

" On rode they to the Forum, 
While laurel-wreaths and flowers 
From house-tops and from windows 
Fell on their crests in showers. 
When they drew nigh to "Vesta, 
They vaulted down amain, 
And washed their horses in the well 
That spriixgs by Vesta's fane." .... 



Or— 



*' And they made a molten image, 
And set it up on high, 
And there it stands unto this day 
To witness if I lie. 
It stands in the Comitium, 
Plain for all folk to see — • 
Horatius in his harness 
Halting upon one knee.'* 



"Where is it now, Mamma? And Horatius? and the 
Great Twin Brethren — and the rest of them ? " 
" Are gone, my darling ! " 




CHAPTER XV. 

On Christmas- Day, 

|N Christmas-Day, we went, via the Coliseum, for a 
long drive in the Campagna. The black cross, 
at the foot of which many prayers have been 
said for many ages, has disappeared from the centre of 
the arena. It was necessary to take it down in the course 
of the excavations that have revealed the subterranean 
cells whose existence was unsuspected until lately. These 
are mere pits unroofed by the removal of the floor of the 
amphitheatre, and in winter are half-full of water left by 
the overflow of the Tiber and the autumnal rains. The 
abundant and varied Flora of the Coliseum, including 
more than three hundred different wild flowers and such 
affluence of foliage as might almost be catalogued in the 
terms used to describe the botanical lore of the philoso- 
pher-king of Israel : '' Trees from the cedar that is in Le- 
banon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the 
wall," — all these have been swept away by the unsparing 
hand of Signore Rosa, the superintendent to whom the 
care of the ruins of the old city has been committed. To' 
the artistic eye, the Coliseum and other structures have 
suffered irretrievable damage through the measures which, 
he asserts, are indispensable to their preservation. We 
who never saw the rich fringe of ilex and ivy that made 
**the outside wall with its top of gigantic stones, seem 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. IQ/ 

like a mountain-barrier of bare rock, enclosing a green 
and varied valley," forget to regret our loss in congratu- 
lating ourselves that filth has been cleared away with the 
evergreen draperies. Despite the pools of stagnant water 
now occupying half of the vast circle enclosed by the 
scraped and mended walls, the Coliseum is not one-tenth 
as dangerous to the health of him who whiles away a noon- 
tide hour there, or threads the corridors by moonlight as 
when it was far more picturesque. 

The sunlight of this Christmas-Day lay peacefully upon 
and within the walls, as we walked around the circular ar- 
cades, and paused in the centre of the floor, looking up to 
the seats of honor — (the podium) reserved, on the day of 
dedication, for Titus, his family, the Senate, and the Ves- 
tal Virgins. When, according to Merrivale, *' the capa- 
city of the vast edifice was tested by the slaughter of five 
thousand animals in its circuit." 

The site was a drained lake in the gardens of Nero. 
His colossal statue used to stand upon the little pile of 
earth on the other side of the street. Twelve thousand 
captive Jews were overworked to their death in building 
the mighty monument to the destroyer of Jerusalem. 
After describing the dedicatory pageant and its items of 
battles between cranes and pigmies, and of gladiators 
with women, and a sea-fight for which the arena was con- 
verted into a mimic lake, the historian adds : "When all 
was over, Titus himself was seen to weep, perhaps from 
fatigue, possibly from vexation and disgust." 

If the last-named emotions had any share in the reac- 
tionary hysteria characterized as "effeminate" by his best 
friends, his successors did not profit by the lesson. Ha- 
drian slaughtered, on a birth-day frolic in the Coliseum, 
one thousand wild beasts, not to mention less valuable 
human beings. The prudent Augustus forbade the en- 



193 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

trance of the noble classes into the arena as combatants, 
and to avoid a hustle of death, decreed that not more than 
sixty pairs of gladiators should be engaged at one time in 
the fashionable butchery. Commodus had no such scru- 
ples on the subject of caste or humanity. His imperial 
form bound about with a lion's skin, his locks bedusted 
with gold, he fought repeatedly upon the bloody sands, 
killing his man — he being both emperor and beast — in 
every encounter. Ignatius — reputed to have been one of 
the children blessed by Our Lord — uttered here his last 
confession of faith : 

*' I am as the grain of the field, and must be ground by the 
teeth of the lions, that I may become bread fit for His table. " 

The Christians sought the deserted Coliseum by stealth, 
that night, to gather the few bones the lions had left. 
Some of these, his friends, may have been among the one 
hundred and fifteen ^' obstinates " drawn up upon the earth 
scarcely dried from the blood of Ignatius, a line of steady 
targets for the arrows of skilled bowmen — a kind of arch- 
ery practice in high favor with Roman clubs just then. 

The life-blood that followed the arrow-thrust was a safe 
and rapid stream to float the soul into harbor. One hour 
of heaven were worth all the smiting, and thrusting, and 
tearing, and ^/leirs have been centuries of bliss. But our 
hearts ached with pain and sympathy inexpressible in the 
Coliseum, on that Christmas-Day. There is poetic beauty 
and profound spiritual significance in the churchly fable 
that Gregory the Great pressed fresh blood from a hand- 
ful of earth taken from the floor of the amphitheatre. 

'* While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall — 
And when Rome falls — the world !" 

Thus runs the ancient prophecy. 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. I99 

Plundering cardinals and thrifty popes had never heard 
the saying, or were strangely indifferent to the fate of 
their empire and globe for four hundred years of spolia- 
tion and desecration. Cardinal Farnese built his palace 
out of the marble casings. It is amazing even to those 
who have inspected the massive walls cemented by mor- 
tar as hard as the stones it binds together, that the four 
thousand men appointed to tear down and bear off in 
twelve hours the materials needed for the Farnese palace, 
did not demolish or impair the solidity of the whole struc- 
ture. After abortive attempts on the part of sundry popes 
to utilize the building by turning the corridors into ba- 
zaars and establishing manufactories of woolen goods and 
saltpetre in the central space, the place was left to quiet 
decay and religious rites. Clement XL consecrated it to 
the memory of the faithful disciples who perished there 
"for Christ's sake." Stations were appointed in the ar- 
cades, the black cross was set up and indulgences granted 
to all believers who would say a prayer at its foot for the 
rest of the martyrs' souls. Masses were said every Friday 
afternoon, each station visited in turn with chant and 
prayer, and then a sermon preached by a Capuchin friar. 
Vines thickened and trees shot upward from tier and bat- 
tlement, night-birds hooted in the upper shades, thieves 
and lazzaroni prowled below. Dirt and miasma marked 
the sacred precincts for their own. We can but be grate- 
ful that the march of improvement, begun when the Ital- 
ian troops entered Rome in 1870 through the breach near 
the Porta Pia, has reached the Coliseum, cleansing and 
strengthening, although not beautifying it. 

About midway between the Forum and Coliseum we 
had passed — as no Jew ever does — under the Arch of Ti- 
tus. It spans the Via Sacra, leading right on from the 
southern gate of the city through the Forum to the Capi- 



200 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

tol. The pavement of huge square blocks of lava is the 
same on which rolled, jokingly in their springless chari- 
ots, the conquerors returning in triumph with such grief- 
ful captives in their train as are sculptured upon the inside 
of this arch. The Goths, the Middle Ages, and the Popes 
(or their nephews), dealt terrible blows at the procession 
of Jewish prisoners, bearing the seven-branched candle- 
stick, the table of shew-bread, and the golden trumpets of 
the priests. Arms and legs are missing, and features sadly 
marred. But drooping heads and lax figures, and the less 
mutilated faces express the utter dejection, the proud but 
hopeless humiliation of the band who left their happier 
countr^^men dead by famine, crucifixion, the sword and 
fire, in the ashes of their city. 

A rod or two further, and we were in the Via Appia. 

" In that vineyard," said I, pointing to a rickety gate 
on our left, ''are the remains of the Porta Capena, where 
the surviving Horatius met and killed his sister as she be- 
wailed the death of her lover, the last of the Curatii. Her 
brother presented himself to her wearing the cloak she 
had embroidered for and given to her betrothed." 

" The whole story is a highly figurative history of a war 
between the Romans and Albans," began Caput, mildly 
corrective. " The best authorities are agreed that Ho- 
ratii and Curatii are alike mythical." 

I should have been vexed upon any other day. Had I 
not seen, beyond the fifth milestone on this very road, the 
tombs of the six combatants ? Had not my girlish heart 
stood still with awe when Rachel, as Camille, fell dead 
upon the stage beneath the steel of her irate brother ? 

I did say — I hope, temperately — " Cicero was welcomed 
at the Porta Capena, by the Senate and people, on his re- 
turn from banishment, B. C. 57. That is, if there was 
ever such a man as Cicero ! " 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 201 

The Baths of Caracalla ; the tombs of the Scipios ; the 
Columbaria of the Freedmen of Augustus ; the Catacombs 
of St. Sebastian and of St. Calixtus — are situate upon the 
Appian Way. Each should have its visit in turn. Any 
one of them was, in speculators' slang, " too big a thing " 
for one Christmas forenoon. We were on pure pleasure 
bent — not in bondage to Baedeker. A quarter of a mile 
from the road, still to our left, the ground falls away into 
a cup-like basin, holding the Fountain of Egeria enshrined 
in a grove of dark ilex-trees. A couple of miles further, 
and we passed through the Gate of San Sebastian, sup- 
ported by two towers in fair preservation. We were still 
within the corporate limits of Old Rome. At this gate 
welcoming processions from the city met those who re- 
turned to her in triumphal pomp, or guests, to whom the 
Senate decreed extraordinary honors. A little brook runs 
across the road at the bottom of the next hill, and, just 
beyond it, is the ruined tomb of the murdered Geta. At 
a fork in the highway near this is a dirty little church, set 
down so close to the road that the mud from passing 
wheels has spattered the front. Here, according to the 
legend, Peter, fleeing from Nero's persecution, met his 
Lord with His face toward the city. 

'^ Lord ! whither goest Thou ? " exclaimed the aston- 
ished apostle. 

*' I go to Rome to be again crucified ! " answered the 
Master. 

Peter, taking the vision as a token that he should not 
shrink from martyrdom, returned to Rome. 

The chapel — it is nothing more — of *' Domine quo 
vadis" commemorates the interview. We stepped from 
the carriage upon the broken threshold, and tried the 
locked door. A priest as slovenly as the building unclosed 
it. Directly opposite the entrance is a plaster cast of 



202 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Michael Angelo's statue of Our Saviour in the act of ad- 
dressing Peter. The foot extended in the forward step 
has been almost kissed away by pilgrims. On the right 
wall is a fresh and flashy, yet graphic fresco of the Lord, 
walking swiftly toward Rome ; upon the left kneels the 
conscience-smitten Peter. Between them, upon the floor, 
secured by a grating from the abrading homage of the 
vulgar, is a copy of the footprints left upon the rock 
at the spot where the meeting took place. The ori- 
ginal is in the church of San Sebastiano. The marble 
is stained with yellowish blotches. The impression is 
coarsely cut ; the conception is yet coarser. Two brawny, 
naked feet, enormous in size, plebeian in shape, are set 
squarely and straight, side by side, as no living man would 
stand of his own accord. The impudence of these priestly 
relics would be contemptible only, were the subjects less 
sacred. We turned away from the '^ fac-simile " in sad dis- 
gust. The legend had been a favorite with us both. We 
were sorry we had entered the mouldy little barn. The 
offer of the sacristan to sell us beads, medals, and photo- 
graphs was in keeping with the rest of the show. We gave 
him a franc ; plucked from the cracked door-stone a bit 
of pellitory — herba parietina^ the sobriquet given to Trajan 
in derision of his habit of writing his name upon much 
which he had not built — and returned to our carriage. 

The way is bordered, until one reaches the tomb of 
Caecilia Metella by vineyard and meadow walls. Most of 
the stones used in building these were collected from the 
ancient pavement, or the dehHs of fortresses and tombs that 
encumbered this. Imbedded in the mortar, and often de- 
faced by clots and daubs of it, put in beside common rub- 
ble-stones and sherds of tufa, are many sculptured frag- 
ments. Here, the corner of a richly-carv^ed capital pro- 
jects from the surface ; there, a cluster of flowers, with a 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 203 

serpent stealing out of sight among the leaves. Now, a 
baby's head laughs between lumps of travertine or granite ; 
next comes a part of a gladiator's arm, or the curve of a 
w^oman's neck. The ivy is luxuriantly aggressive and of a 
species we had never seen elsewhere, gemmed with glossy, 
saffron-colored berries. *'Wee, crimson-tipped" daisies 
mingled with grass that is never sere. In March we found 
anemones of every hue ; pink and white cyclamen ; wild 
violets, at once diffusive and retentive of odor, embalming 
gloves, handkerchiefs, and the much-thumbed leaves of 
our guide-books ; reddish-brown wall-flowers, and hosts of 
other '^ wild " blossoms on this road. The dwelling-houses 
we passed were rude, slight huts, hovels of reeds and straw, 
often reared upon the foundation of a tomb. 

For this Way of Triumph was also the Street of Tombs. 
Sepulchres, or their ruins, are scattered on every side. We 
looked past them, where there occurred a break in the 
road-wall over the billowing Campagna, the arches of 
ancient and modern aqueducts dwindling into cobweb-lines 
in the hazy distance ; above them at the Sabine and Alban 
hills, newly capped with snow, while Spring smiled warmly 
upon the plains at their base. We alighted at the best- 
known of these homes of the dead, not many of which hold 
the ashes that gave them names. 

Hawthorne describes it in touches few and masterly. 
" It is built of great blocks of hewn stone on avast square 
foundation of rough, agglomerated material, such as com- 
poses the mass of all the other ruinous tombs. But, 
whatever might be the cause, it is in a far better state of 
preservation than they. On its broad summit rise the 
battlements of a mediaeval fortress, out of the midst of 
which grow trees, bushes, and thick festoons of ivy. This 
tomb of a woman has become the dungeon-keep of a 
castle, and all the care that Caecilia Metella's husband 



204 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

could bestow to secure endless peace for her beloved relics 
only sufficed to make that handful of precious ashes the 
nucleus of battles long ages after her death." 

The powerful family of the Gaetani added the battle- 
ments that tooth the top of the enormous tower, w^hen they 
made it their chateau and fortress in the thirteenth cen- 
tury. The ruins of their church are close to the walls. 
We paid a trifling fee for the privilege of entering the 
court-yard of the Tomb where there was nothing to see, 
and for peeping into the ruinous cellar, once the "cave" 
where ''treasure lay, so locked, so hid" — the sarcophagus 
about Avhich all these stone swathings were wound as 
layers of silk and wool about a costly jewel. The empty 
marble coffin is in a Roman museum. A public-spirited 
pope ripped off the sculptured casing of the exterior that 
he might build the Fountain of Trevi. It would be as 
futile to seek for this woman's ashes as for those of Wick- 
liffe after the Avon had carried them out to sea. 

The dreary road-walls terminate here, but the survey of 
the tombs diverts the attention from the views of Cani- 
pagna and mountains. They must have formed an almost 
continuous block of buildings for miles. The founda- 
tions may be traced still, and about these are remnants of 
the statues and symbolic ornaments that gave them indi- 
viduality and beauty. The figure w^iich occurred most 
frequently was that of a man in the dress of a Roman 
citizen, the arm laid over the breast to hold the toga in 
place and fold. Most of the heads were missing, and 
usually the legs, but the torso had always character, some- 
times beauty, in it. There were hundreds of them here 
once, probably mounted sentinel-wise at the doors of the 
tombs, changeless effigies of men who had been, who were 
now a pinch of dust, preserved in a sealed urn for fear the 
wind might take them away. 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 20$ 

There is a so-called '' restored" tomb near the ''fourth 
mile-stone." A bas-relief, representing a murder, is let 
into a brick fagade. 

'' The tomb of Seneca ! " said our cocchiere^ confidently. 

'' Dubious ! " commented the genius of wary common 
sense upon the front seat. ''If he ivas put to death by 
Nero's officers near the fourth mile-stone, is it probable 
that he was interred on the spot ? " 

The driver held to his assertion, and I got out to pick 
daisies and violets growing in the shelter of the ugly red- 
brick front — there was no back, — souvenirs that lie to-day, 
faded but fragrant, between the leaves of my Baedeker. 
Nearly opposite to the round heaps of turf -grown rubbish 
with solid basement walls, "supposed to be the tombs of 
the Horatii and Curatii," across the road and a field, are 
the ruins of the Villa of Commodus. He wrested this 
pleasant country-seat from two brothers, who were the 
Naboths of the coveted possession. Conduits have been 
dug out from the ruins, stamped with their names, and 
convicting him mutely but surely of the theft charged 
upon him by contemporaries. He and his favorite Marcia 
were sojourning here when the house was "mobbed" by 
a deputation, several thousand in number, sent from Rome 
to call him to account for his misdeeds. He pacified them 
measurably by throwing from an upper window the head 
of Cleander, his obnoxious premier, and beating out the 
brains of that official's child. The Emperor's Coliseum 
practice made such an evening's work a mere bagatelle. 

Six miles from Rome is the Rotondo, believed to have 
beeii the family mausoleum of a poet-friend of Horace, 
Massala Corvinus. It is larger than the tomb of the 
"wealthiest Roman's wife," but not so well-preserved. A 
miserable wine-shop was in the court-yard, and we paid 
the mistress half-a-franc for permission to mount a flight 



206 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

of easy steps to the summit. Upon the fiat roof, formed 
by the flooring of the upper story, the walls of which are 
half gone, olive-trees have taken root and overhang the 
sides. The eye swept the Campagna for miles, followed 
the Via Appia, stretched like a white ribbon between 
grassy slopes and sepulchre-ruins, back into Rome and on- 
ward to Albano. A faintly-tinged haze brought the moun- 
tains nearer, instead of hiding them — purpled the thymy 
dells between the swells of the far-reaching prairies. 
Flocks of sheep browsed upon these, attended by shep- 
herds and dogs. A party of English riders cantered by 
from Rome, the blue habit and scarlet plume of the only 
lady equestrian made conspicuous by the white road and 
green banks. Near and far, the course of the ancient 
highway was defined by masses of masonry in ruins, some 
overgrown by herbs, vines, and even trees, but most of 
them naked to the sun and wind. These have not been 
the destroyers of the tombs. On the contrary, the un- 
covered foundations are hardened by the action of the ele- 
ments, until bricks are as unyielding as solid marble and 
cement is like flint. Nature and neglect are co-workers, 
whose operations upon buildings raised by man, are far 
less to be feared in this than in Northern climates. The 
North, that let loose her brutish hordes upon aland so much 
fairer than their own that their dull eyes could not be 
tempted by her beauty except to wanton devastation. 
They were grown-up children who battered the choicest 
and most delicate objects for the pleasure of seeing and 
hearing the crash. 

''Some day," said Caput, wistful lights in the eyes that 
looked far away to where the road lost itself in the blue 
hills — '' Some day, I mean to drive all the way to the Appii 
Forum, and follow St. Paul's track back to the city." 

He brought out his pocket Testament, and, amid the 



ON CHRISTMAS -DAY. 20/ 

broken walls, the shadows of the olive-boughs flickering 
upon the page, we read how the Great Apostle longed to 
*' see Rome," yet knowing that bonds and imprisonment 
awaited him wherever he went — the Rome he was never 
to quit as a free man, and where he was to leave a multi- 
tude of witnesses to his fidelity and the living power of 
the Gospel, of which he was an ambassador in bonds. 
Thence we passed to the few words describing his journey 
and reception : 

''We came the next day unto Puteoli, where we found 
brethren, and were desired to tarry with them seven days. 
And so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when 
the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as 
Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. Whom, when Paul 
saw, he thanked God and took courage." 

For some miles the Way has been cleared down to the 
ancient pavement. It was something to see the stones 
over which St. Paul had walked. 

We took St. Peter's in our drive home. When one is 
used to the immensity of its spaces, has accommodated 
his imagination comfortably to the aisle-vistas and the 
height of the ceilings, St. Peter's is the most restful tem- 
ple in Rome. The equable temperature — never cold in 
winter, never hot in summer ; the solemn quiet of a vast- 
ness in which the footfalls upon the floor die away with 
out echo, and the sound of organ and chant from one of 
the many chapels only stirs a musical throb which never 
swells into reverberation ; the subdued light — all contri- 
bute to the sense of grateful tranquillity that allures one 
to frequent visits and slow, musing promenades within the 
magnificent Basilica. Madame de Stael says in one line 
what others have failed to express in pages of labored 
rhetoric : 

^■^ L Architecture de St. Pierre est une musique fixee.'' 



208 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Listening with all our souls, we strolled up one side of 
the church past the bronze Image, in appearance more 
Fetish than saint. A statue of Jupiter was melted down 
to make it. The frown of the Thunderer still contracts 
the brows that seem to find the round of glory, spoked like 
a wheel, too heavy. The projecting toe, often renewed, 
bright as a new brass kettle from the attrition of kisses, 
rests upon a pedestal five feet, at least, from the floor. 
Men can conveniently touch it with their lips. Short 
women stand on tiptoe, and children are lifted to it. Each 
wipes it carefully before kissing, a ceremony made neces- 
sary by a popular trick of the Roman gamins. They 
watch their chance to anoint the holy toe with damp red 
pepper, then hide behind a column to note the effect of 
the next osculation. At the Jubilee of Pius IX., June i6, 
187 1, they dressed the hideous black effigy in pontifical 
vestments, laced and embroidered to the last degree of 
gorgeousness, and fastened the cope of cloth-of-gold with 
a diamond brooch ! 

The baldacchino^ or canopy, built above the high altar 
and overshadowing the tomb of St. Peter, is of gilded 
bronze that once covered the roof of the Pantheon, — an- 
other example of popely thrift. Beneath, yawns an open 
crypt, lined with precious marbles and gained by marble 
stairs. Upon the encompassing balustrade above is a cir- 
cle of ever-burning golden lamps, eighty-six in number. 
Pius VI. (in marble by Canova) kneels forever, as he re- 
quested in his will, before the closed door of St. Peter's 
tomb, below. 

" I wish I could believe that Peter's bones are there ! " 
Caput broke a long thought-laden pause, given to silent 
gazing upon the kneeling form. '' Roman Catholic histo- 
rians say that an oratory was erected here above his re- 
mains, A.D. 90. The circus of Nero was hereabouts. 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 209 

The chapel was in honor of the thousands who died a 
martyr's death in his reign, as well as to mark the spot of 
Peter's burial. In the days of Constantine, a Basilica 
superseded the humble chapel, at which date St. Peter's 
bones were encased in a bronze sarcophagus. Five hun- 
dred years afterward, the Saracens plundered the Basilica. 
Did they take Peter — if he were ever here — or in Rome at 
all ? Or, did they spare his bones when they carried off 
the gilt-bronze coffin and inner casket of pure silver ? " 

Another silence. 

**The Basilica and tomb were here when English Ethel- 
wolf brought his boy Alfred to Rome," I said aloud. 

** But the Popes did their will upon it afterward. Pulled 
down and built up at the bidding of caprice and architects 
until not one of the original stones was left upon another. 
After two centuries of this sort of work — or play — the 
present church was planned and was one hundred and 
seventy-odd years in building. I hope Peter's bones were 
cared for in the squabble. I should like to believe it ! '* 

We looked for a long minute more at the praying pope. 
He believed it so much as to desire to kneel there, with 
clasped hands and bowed head, awaiting through the com- 
ing cycles the opening of the sealed door. 

Wanderings in and out of stately chapels ensued, until 
we had enough of dead popes, marble and bronze. 

The surname of Pope Pignatella, signifying ''little 
cream-jug," suggested to the sculptor the neat conceit of 
mingling sundry cream-pots with other ornaments of his 
tomb. 

Gregory XIII., he of the Gregorian calendar, is an aged 
man, invoking the benediction of Heaven upon whom- 
soever it may concern, while Wisdom, as Minerva, and 
Faith hold a tablet inscribed — '■'' Novi opera hujus etjidem." 

Urban VIII., the patron of Bernini, is almost forgiven 



210 I^OITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

by those who have sickened over the countless and cruel 
devices of his j^r^/^?"^ when one beholds his master-piece of 
absurdity in his sovereign's tomb. The pontiff, in the 
popular attitude of benediction, towers above the black 
marble coffin, in charge of Prudence and Justice, — the 
drapery of the latter evidently a decorous afterthought, — 
while a very airy gilded skeleton is writing, with a degage 
air, the names and titles of Urban upon an obituary list. 
The Barberini bees crawl over the monument, as busily 
officious and in as bad taste as was Bernini himself. 

Pius VII., the prisoner-Pope of Napoleon L, is there — 
a mild old man, looking as if he had suffered and forgiven 
much — sitting dreamily, or drowsily, in a chair, and kept 
in countenance by Courage and Faith. 

Innocent VIII. sleeps, like a tired man, upon his sar- 
cophagus, while his animated Double is enthroned above 
it, one hand, of course, extended in blessing, the other 
holding a copy of the sacred lance that pierced the Sav- 
iour's side, presented to him by Bajazet, and by the pope 
to St. Peter's. 

More interesting to us than these and the tiresome array 
of the many other pontifical and prelatical personages, was 
the arch near the front door of the Basilica, which covers 
the remains of the last of the Stuarts. Canova carved the 
memorial-stone of James III. (the Pretender), his sons, 
Charles Edward (the Young Pretender), and Henry, who, 
— with desperate fidelity w^orthy of a better cause, wearied 
out by the successive failures and misfortunes of his race, 
— gave himself wholly to the Church, devotion to which 
had cost his father independence, happiness, and England. 
Henry Stuart died, as we read here, Cardinal York. Marie 
Clementine Sobieski, wife of James III., named upon the 
tablet, ** Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland," 
who never set foot within the British Empire, — completes 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 211 

the family group. It is said the expenses of these testi- 
monials were defrayed by the then reigning House of Han- 
over. It could well afford to do it. 

In a chapel at the left of the entrance is a mammoth font 
of dark-red porphyry which has a remarkable — I can hardly 
say, in view of cognate facts — a singular history. It is the 
inverted cover of Hadrian's sarcophagus. Having rested 
within its depths longer than his life had entitled him to 
do, this Emperor was ejected and Otho III. took his place. 
In due season, a pope of a pious and practical turn of mind 
ousted Otho, and transferred the lid of the coffin to its 
present place. The bronze fir-cone from the top of the 
mausoleum of Hadrian, now the Castle of San Angelo, is a 
prominent ornament in the gardens of the Vatican. Near 
it are two bronze peacocks, the birds of Juno, from the 
porch of the same edifice. 

" Entirely and throughout consistent," said Caput, caus- 
tically. 

'' I beg your pardon ! Did you address me, sir ? " asked 
a startled voice. 

The Ti-aveling American was upon us. Pater Familias, 
moreover, to the sanguine young people who had attacked 
systematically, Baedeker, Murray and Forbes in hand — the 
opposite chapel, the gem of which is Michael Angelo's 
J^ie^d—tYiQ Dead Christ upon his mother's knees. We rec- 
ognized our interlocutor. A very worthy gentleman, an 
enterprising and opulent citizen of the New World, whom 
we had met, last week, in the sa/o7i of a friend. He was 
making, he had informed a listening circle, ''the grand 
European tour for the third time, now, for educational 
purposes, having brought his boys and girls along. A 
thing few of our country-people have money and brains 
to undertake ! " 

*' I was saying" — explained Caput, "that the Popes 



212 XOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

have done more toward the destruction of the monuments 
of pagan Rome than barbarians and centuries combined. 
I lose patience and temper when I see what they have 
* consecrated ' to the use of their Church. Vandalism is 
an insipid word to employ in this connection." 

Pater Familias put out one foot ; lifted a hortatory 
hand. 

** I have learned to cast such considerations behind 
me, sir ! Anachronisms do not trouble me. Nor sole- 
cisms, except in artistic execution. I travel with a pur- 
pose — that of self-improvement and the foundation, in the 
bosoms of my family, of true principles of art, the culti- 
vation of the instinct of the beautiful in their souls and in 
mine. Despising the statistical, and, to a certain degree, 
the historical, as things of slight moment, I rise into the 
region of the purely aesthetic. For example : " The hor- 
tatory hand pointed to the opposite arch, within which is 
a gorgeous modern copy, in mosaic, of Raphael's ''Trans- 
figuration." ''For example, pointing to that inimitable 
masterpiece, I say to my children — ' Do not examine into 
the ingredients of the pigments staining the canvas, nor 
criticise, anatomically, the structure of the figures. But 
catch, if you can, the spirit and tone of the whole compo- 
sition. Behold, recognize, and make your own the very 
soul and mood, the inspiration of Michael Angela ! ' " 

Caput drew out his watch. 

" Do you know, my dear," he said, plaintively, " that it 
is an hour past our luncheon-time ? " 

At the bottom of the gentle incline leading from the 
church-door into the wide Piazza di San Pietro, we stopped 
for breath and composure. 

Caput grew serious in turning to survey the fagade of 
the Basilica, with the guard of saints and their Master upon 
the balustrade ; the Dome, light in semblance as the clouds 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 21 3 

swimming in summer languor above it, strong as Soracte ; 
the sweep of the colonnades to the right and left, ''with 
the holy ones walking upon their roofs ; " the Obelisk of 
Heliopolis in the centre of the Court and its flashing 
fountains — the heaven of rich, tender blue — 

'' That man has crossed the ocean three times to behold 
all this ]" he said. " He can bring his rabble of children 
to see it with him. While men who could enter the arca- 
na of whose mysteries he prattles ; to whom the life he is 
leading would be like a walk through Paradise — are tied 
down to desk and drugs and country parishes ! That 
these things exist is a tough problem ! " 

We told the story, leaving the pathetic enigma out of 
sight, over our Christmas-dinner, that evening. My Flo- 
rentine angel of mercy, her brothers and sister, were our 
guests. Mince and pumpkin pies were not to be thought 
of, much less obtained here. But our Italian cook had 
under my eye, stuffed and roasted a turkey, the best we 
could buy in the poultry-shop just around the corner from 
the Pantheon. I did not spoil my friends' appetites by 
describing the manner of its '' taking-off " which may, 
however, interest poultry-fanciers. I wanted a larger 
bird than any displayed by the turkey-vender, and he 
bade me return in fifteen minutes, when he would have 
just what I desired. 

We gave half an hour to a ramble around the square 
surrounding the Pantheon, the most nearly perfect pagan 
building in Rome. Urban VIII. abstracted nearly five 
hundred thousand pounds of gilt bronze from portico and 
dome, to be wrought into the twisted columns of St. Pe- 
ter's baldacchino, and into cannon for the defence of that 
refuge for scared and hunted popes — the Castle of San 
Angelo. In recompense for the liberty he had taken with 
the Temple of all the Gods, he added, by the hand of his 



214 .LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

obsequious architect, the comical little towers like mus- 
tard-pots, known to the people as the *' asses' ears of Ber- 
nini." Another pope, one of the Benedicts, offered no 
apology in word or deed, for pulling off the rare old mar- 
bles facing the inner side of the dome, and using them 
for the adornment of churches and palaces. 

But to our turkey ! The merchant had him well in hand 
when we got back. He had tied a stout twine tightly 
around the creature's neck, and while it died by slow 
strangulation, held it fast between his knees and stripped 
off the feathers from the palpitating body. All our fowls 
came to us with this twine necklace knotted about the 
gullet, and all had a trick of shrinking unaccountably in 
cooking. 

" He is a-swellin' wisibly before my eyes ! " quoted Caput 
from the elder Weller, as we gazed, horror-stricken, upon 
the operation. 

The merchant laughed — the sweet, childish laugh of the 
Italian of whatever rank, that showed his snowy teeth and 
brought sparkle to his black eyes. 

''Altro?" he said. ^^Buono? Bon? Signora like 'im 
mooch ? " 

I tried not to remember how little I had liked it when 
my guests praised the brown, fat bird. 

Canned cranberries and tomatoes we had purchased 
from Brown, the polite English grocer in Via della Croce, 
who makes a specialty of "American goods." Nazzari, 
the Incomparable (in Rome), furnished the dessert. Soup, 
fish, and some of the vegetables were essentially Italian, 
and none the worse on that account. 

There was a strange commingling and struggle of pain 
and pleasure in that '^make-believe" Christmas-at-home 
in a foreign land. It was a new and fantastically-wrought 
link in a golden chain that ran back until lost in the 



ON CHRISTMAS-DAY. 21 5 

misty brightness of infancy. We gathered about our par- 
lor-fire, for which we had, with some difficulty, procured 
a Yule-log of respectable dimensions ; talked of loved and 
distant ones and other days ; said, with heart and tongue, 
** Heaven bless the country we love the best, and the 
friends who, to-night, remember us as we think of them ! " 
We told funny stories, all we could remember, in which 
the Average Briton and Traveling American figured con- 
spicuously. We laughed amiably at each other's jokes. 
We planned days and weeks of sight-seeing and excur- 
sions, waxed enthusiastic over the wealth of Roman ruins, 
and declared ourselves more than satisfied with the experi- 
ment of trans-ocean travel. 

We were, or should be, on the morrow. 

Now, between the eyes of our spirit and the storied 
riches of this sunbright elysium, the Italia of kings, con- 
suls, emperors, and popes, glided visions of ice-bound 
rivers and snow-clad hills — of red firesides and jocund 
frolic, and clan-gatherings, from near and from far — of 
Christmas stockings, and Christmas trees, and Christmas 
greetings — of ringing skates, making resonant moonlit 
nights, and the tintinnabulations of sleigh-bells — of silent 
grave-yards, where the snow was lying spotless and 
smooth. 

Beneath laugh and jest, and graver talk of visions ful- 
filled, and projects for future enjoyment — underlying all 
these was a slow-heaving main, hardly repressed — an in- 
definable, yet exquisite, heart-ache very far down. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

L! Allegro and II Penseroso, 

HERE is music by the best bands in Rome upon 
tlie Pincian Hill on Sabbath afternoons. Sitting 
at the window of our tiny library, affecting to 
read or write, my eyes wandered continually to the lively 
scene beyond. My fingers were beating time to the 
waltzes, overtures, and marches that floated over the wall 
and down the terraces — over the orange and camellia-trees, 
the pansy and violet-beds, and lilac-bushes in the court- 
yard, the pride of our \\2.ndsome portiere' s heart — up to my 
Calvinistic ears. Drive and promenade were in full and 
near view, and up both streamed, for two hours, a tossing 
tide of carriages and pedestrians. It would flow down in 
variegated billows when the sun should paint the sky be- 
hind St. Peter's golden-red. Resigning even the pretence 
of occupation by-and-by, I used to lie back in my easy- 
chair, my feet upon the fender, hemming in the wood-fire 
we never suffered to go out, and, watching the pleasure- 
making on the hill, dream until I forgot myself and the 
age in which I lived. 

At the foot of the Pincio, which now overtops the other 
hills of Rome, beside the Porta del Popolo, or People's 
Gate, are the convent and church of S. Augustine. In 
the former, Luther dwelt during his stay in the city of his 
love and longing. At this gate he prostrated himself and 



L' ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. 21/ 

kissed the earth in a passion of delight and thankfulness. 
In the church he celebrated his first mass in Rome, and 
just before his departure, soon after the change of feeling 
and purpose which befell him upon the Sacred Staircase, 
he performed here his last service as a priest of the Rom- 
ish Church. 

S. Augustine's was raised upon the site of the tomb of 
Nero — a spot infested, according to tradition, for hundreds 
of years, by flocks of crows, who built, roosted, and cawed 
in the neighboring trees, becoming in time such a nuisance 
as to set one of the popes to dreaming upon the subject. 
In a vision, it was revealed to him that these noisy rooks 
were demons contending for or exulting in the possession 
of the soul of the wicked tyrant — a point on which there 
could have been little uncertainty, even in the mind of a 
middle-ages pope. The trees were leveled, and the birds, 
or devils, scared away by the hammers of workmen em- 
ployed upon a church paid for by penny collections among 
the people. The Gate of the People owes its name to this 
circumstance. Within the antique gateway, Christina of 
Sweden w^as welcomed to Rome after her apostasy from 
Protestantism, cardinals and bishops and a long line of 
sub-officials meeting her here in stately procession. It is 
also known as the Flaminian Gate, opening as it does upon 
the. famous Flaminian Way. A side-road, branching off 
from this a few rods beyond the walls, leads into and 
through the beautiful grounds of the Villa Borghese. 

Turning to the left, after entering the Porta del Popolo, 
one ascends by a sinuous road the Pincio, or Flill of Gar- 
dens. Below lies the Piazza del Popolo, the twin churches 
opposite the city-gate marking the burial-place of Sylla. 
The red sandstone obelisk in the middle of the square is 
from Heliopolis, and the oldest monument in Rome. The 
most heedless traveler pauses upon the Pincian terraces to 



2l8 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

look down upon "the flame-shaped column," which, Mer-. 
ivale tells us, "was a symbol of the sun, and originally 
bore a blazing orb upon its summit." Hawthorne reminds 
us yet more thrillingly that " this monument supplied one 
of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore 
from Egypt into the desert." And so strong is the chain 
with which, in his " Marble Faun," this subtle and delicate 
genius has united the historical and the imaginative, one 
recollects, in the same instant, that the parapet by which 
he is standing is the one over which Kenyon and Hilda 
vv'atched the enigmatical pantomime of Miriam and the 
Model beside the "four-fold fountain" at the base of the 
obelisk. Nowhere else in Rome is the thoughtful traveler 
more tempted to borrow from this marvelous romance 
words descriptive of scene and emotion than when he 
reaches the "broad and stately walk that skirts the brow" 
of the Pincio. We read and repeated the paragraph that, 
to this hour, brings the view to us with the clearness and 
minuteness of a sun-picture, until it arose of itself to our 
lips whenever we halted upon the outer edge of the semi- 
circular sweep of wall. 

" Beneath them, from the base of the abrupt descent, the 
city spread wide away in a close contiguity of red-earthen 
roofs, above which rose eminent the domes of a hundred 
churches, besides here and there a tower, and the upper 
windows of some taller, or higher situated palace, looking 
down on a multitude of palatial abodes. At a distance, 
ascending out of the central mass of edifices, they could 
see the top of the Antonine column, and, near it, the cir- 
cular roof of the Pantheon, looking heavenward with its 
ever-open eye." 

"The very dust of Rome," he writes again, "is historic, 
and inevitably settles on our page and mingles with our 
ink." 



L ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. 219 

Thus, the Pincio — the gayest place in Rome on ** music- 
afternoon," and one of the loveliest at all seasons and 
every day ; — a modern garden, with parterres of ever-green 
and ever-blooming roses ; with modern fountains and 
plantations, rustic summer-houses and play-grounds, all 
erected and laid out — if Hare is to be credited — within 
twenty years, in the " deserted waste wiiere the ghost of 
Nero was believed to wander" in the dark ages, had its 
story and its tragedy antedating the bloody death and 
post-mortem peregrinations of him over whose grave the 
crows quareled at the bottom of the hill. Other gardens 
smiled here when Lucullus supped in the Hall of Apollo 
in his Pincian Villa with Cicero and Pompey, and was 
served with more than imperial luxury. Here, Asiaticus, 
condemned to die through the machinations of the wick- 
edest woman in Rome, who coveted ground and house, 
bled himself to death after ''he had inspected the pyre 
prepared for him in his own gardens, and ordered it to be 
removed to another spot that an umbrageous plantation 
which overhung it might not be injured by the flames." 

Here grew the tree up which climbed Messalina's crea- 
ture on the night of her last and wildest orgy w^ith her 
lover, and flung down the warning — "I see an awful 
storm coming from Ostia ! " The approaching tempest 
was the injured husband, Claudius, the Emperor, whose 
swift advance drove Messalina, half-drunken and half- 
clad, to a hiding-place " in the shade of her gardens on 
the Pincio, the price of the blood of the murdered Asiati- 
cus." There she died. " The hot blood of the wanton 
smoked on the pavement of his garden, and stained, with 
a deeper hue, the variegated marbles of Lucullus."* 

At the intersection of the two fashionable drives which 

* Merivale, vol. vi., p. 176. 



220 .LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

constitute ''the round," — a circuit that can be accom- 
plished with ease in five minutes — is an obelisk, also 
Egyptian, erected, primarily, upon the Nile, by Hadrian 
and his Empress, in memory of the drowned Antinous. 

Urban VIII. left his mark and a memento of the inevi- 
table Bernini on the Pincio, in the Moses Fountain. It 
commands, through an artful opening in the overhanging 
trees, an exquisitely lovely view of St. Peter's, framed in 
an arch of green. The fountain consists of a circular ba- 
sin, and, in the middle of this, Jochebed, the mother of 
Moses, upon an island. She looks heavenward while she 
stoops to extricate a hydrocephalus babe from a basket 
much too small for his trunk and limbs, not to say the 
big head. 

Caput's criticism was professionally indignant. 

" It is simply preposterous to fancy that a child with 
such an abnormal cerebral development could ever have 
become a leader of armies or a law-giver. The wretched 
woman naturally avoids the contemplation of the mon- 
strosity she has brought into the world." 

From that section of the Pincian Gardens overlooking 
the Borghese Villa and grounds projects a portion of the 
ancient w^all of Rome, that was pronounced unsafe and 
ready to fall in the time of Belisarius. Being miracu- 
lously held in place by St. Peter, there is now no real 
danger, unsteady as it looks, that this end of the Pincio 
will give way under the w^eight of the superincumbent 
wall, and plunge down the precipice among the ilex-trees 
and stone-pines beneath. In the shadow of this wall, tra- 
dition holds that blind Belisarius begged from the pass- 
ers-by. 

With the deepening glow of the sunset — 

*' Flushing tall cypress-bough, 
Temple and tower" — 



L' ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. 221 

the Roman promenaders and riders flock homeward from 
Borghese and Pincio. Foreigners, less familiar with the 
character of the unwholesome airs and noxious dews of 
twilight, linger later until they learn better. Mingling 
with the flood of black coats that poured down the shorter 
ascent in sight of my windows were rills of scarlet and 
purple that puzzled me for awhile. At length I made it 
my business to examine them more closely from the par- 
lor balcony in their passage through the street at the front 
of the house. 

" There go th.Q ganders I " shouted Boy, who accompanied 
me to the look-out. 

'' I should call them flamingoes ? " laughed I. 

The students in the Propaganda wear long gowns, 
black, red, or purple, and broad-brimmed hats, each na- 
tionality having its uniform. The members of each divi- 
sion take their "constitutional" at morning and evening 
in a body, striding along with energy that sends their skirts 
flapping behind them in a gale of their own making. 
They seldom missed a band-afternoon upon the Pincio, 
and were a picturesque element in the lively display. 
Boy's name for them was an honest mispronunciation of a 
polysyllable too big for him to handle. But I never saw 
them stalking in a slender row across the Piazza di Spagna 
and up the hill without a smile at the random shot. The 
name had a sort of aptness when fitted to the sober young- 
sters whose deportment was solemn to grotesqueness by con- 
trast with the volatile crowd they threaded in their progress 
to the pools of refreshment prescribed as a daily recreation 
— the fleeting glimpses of the world outside of their pasture. 

The gates of the avenues by which access is had to the 
gardens are closed soon after sundown. No one is allowed 
to walk there after dark, or remain there overnight. But 
theatres and other places of amusement are open in the 



222 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

evening, the best operatic and dramatic entertainments 
being reserved for Sunday night. We wearied soon of 
the bustle and gayety of such Sabbath afternoons. We 
c^uld not shut out from our apartment the strains that 
seduced thought away from the books we would fain 
study. The tramp and hum of the street were well-nigh 
as bewildering. In the beginning, to avoid this — after- 
ward, from love of the place and the beauty and quiet that 
r^n there, like the visible benediction of the All-Father 
— ^we fell into the practice of driving out every week to 
the Protestant Cemetery. 

Boy was always one of the carriage-party. The streets 
were a continual carnival to him on this, the Christian's 
Lord's Day, being alive with mountebanks and strolling 
musicians. Behind the block in which were our apart- 
ments was an open square, where a miniature circus w^as 
held at least one Sabbath per month, it was said, for the 
diversion of the boy-prince who is now the heir-apparent. 
In view of the fact that our heir-apparent was to be edu- 
cated for Protestant citizenship in America, we preferred 
for him, as for ourselves, Sabbath meditations among the 
tombs to the divers temptations of the town — temptations 
not to be shunned except by locking him up in a window- 
less closet and stuffing his ears with cotton. The route 
usually selected, because it was quietest on the holiday 
that drew the populace elsewhere, granted us peeps at 
many interesting objects and localities. 

In the vestibule of the church of Santa Maria in Cos- 
medin is the once-noted Bocca della Verita, or Mouth of 
Truth — a round, fiat wheel, like an overgrown grindstone 
set on edge, a gaping mouth in the centre. The first time 
we visited it (it w^as }iot on the Sabbath) the Average Briton 
was before us, and affably volunteered an explanation of 
the rude mask. 



L' ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. 22$ 

'* You see, when a fellah was suspected of perjury— false 
swearing, you know — he was brought heah and made to 
put his harnd in those — ah ! — confoundedly beastly jaws ; 
when, if he had lied or — ah ! — prevaricated, you know, the 
mouth would shut upon his harnd, and, in short, bit it 
off ! The truth was, I farncy, that there was a fellah be- 
hind there with a sword or cleaver, or something of that 
kind, you know." 

Across the church square, which is adorned by a grace- 
ful fountain, often copied in our country, is a small, cir- 
cular Temple of Vesta, dating back to the reign of Ves- 
pasian, if not to Pompey's time. It is a tiny gem of a 
ruin, if ruin it can be called. The interior is a chapel, 
lighted by slits high in the wall. A row of Corinthian 
columns, but one of them broken, surrounds it ; a conical 
tiled roof covers it. This heathen fane is a favorite sub- 
ject with painters and photographers. Near it is a much 
older building — the Temple of Fortune — erected by Ser- 
vius TuUius, remodeled during the Republic. Other 
houses have been built into one side, and the spaces be- 
tween the Ionic columns of the other three been filled in 
with solid walls to make a larger chamber. It is a church 
now, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt. 

An alley separates this from the House of Rienzi, the 
Last of the Tribunes. The marble or stucco coating has 
peeled away from the walls, but, near the eaves are frag- 
ments of rich sculpture. The Latin inscription over the 
doorway has reference to the honors and might of the 
ancient owners. Beyond these there is not a symptom of 
beauty or grandeur about the ugly, rectangular homestead. 
The Tiber rolls near, and its inundations have had much 
to do with the defacement of the lower part of the house. 
The suspension-bridge w^hich crosses the slow yellow wa- 
ters at this point, rests at one end upon piers built by 



224 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Scipio Africanus. From this bridge — the Ponte Rotto — 
the pampered body of Heliogabalus was thrown into the 
river. Further down the stream are tire foundations of 
other piles, w^iich have withstood current and freshet for 
two tliousand years. We always paused when opposite 
these. Boy knew tire point, and never wearied of hearing 
and telHng — 

" How well Horatius kept the bridge 
In the brave days of old. " 

Upon the thither bank were mustered the hosts who made 
Lars Porsenna "a proud man" ''upon the trysting-day. " 

" There lacked not men of prowess, 
Nor men of lordly race ; 
For all Etruria's noblest 
Were 'round the fatal place," 

From the same shore captive Clelia plunged into the river 
on horseback, and swam over to the city. A short dis- 
tance above our halting-place the Cloaca Maxima, a huge, 
arched opening upon the brink, debouches into the river, 
still doing service as the chief sewer of Rome. 

Macaulay does well to tell us that the current of Father 
Tiber was "swollen high by mouths of rain" when re- 
counting the exploit of Horatius Coccles. The ramparts 
from which the Romans frowned upon their foes exist no 
longer, but the low-lying river gives no exalted estimate 
of their altitude when 

*' To the highest turret-tops 
Was splashed the yellow foam." 

''In point of fact," as the Average Briton would say, 
the Tiber is a lazy, muddy water-course, not half as wide, 
I should say, as the Thames, and less lordly in every way. 
At its best, /. ^., its fullest, it is never grand or dignified ; 



L' ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. 225 

a sulky, unclean parent Rome should be ashamed to 
claim. 

'' How dirty Horatius' clothes must have been when 
he got out ! " said Boy, seriously, eying with strong dis- 
favor the "tawny mane," sleek to oiliness in the calm 
afternoon light. 

Dredging-boats moor fast to the massive piers of the 
Pons Sublicius, better known to us as the Horatian 
Bridge. They were always at work upon the oozy bed 
of the river, to what end, we could never discover. 

The Monte Testaccio, a hill less than two hundred feet 
high, starts abruptly out of the rough plain in front of the 
English Cemetery. It is composed entirely of pot-sherds, 
broken crockery of all kinds, covered with a slow accre- 
tion of earth thick enough to sustain scanty vegetation. 
Why, when, and how, the extraordinary pile of refuse 
grew into its present proportions, is a mystery. It is 
older than the Aurelian wall in whose shelter nestles the 
Protestant burying-ground. 

The custodian, always civil and obliging, learned to 
know and welcome us by and by, and after answering 
our ring at the gate would say, smilingly: — "You know 
the way ! " and leave us to our wanderings. Boy had per- 
mission to fill his cap with scarlet and white camellias 
which had fallen from the trees growing in the ground 
and open air at mid-winter. I might pick freely the vio- 
lets and great, velvet-petaled pansies covering graves and 
borders. When the guardian of the grounds bade us 
"Good-day" at our egress, he would add to gentle chid- 
ings for the sm.allness of my bouquet, a bunch of roses, a 
handful of double purple violets or a spray of camellias. 
We were at home within the enclosure, to us a little sanc- 
tuary where we could be thoughtful, peaceful — hardly 
sad. 



226 LQITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

*' It is enough to make one in love with death to think 
of sleeping in so sweet a spot," wrote Shelley. 

''Strangers always ask first for Shelley's tomb," said 
the custodian. 

It lies at the top of a steep path, directly against the 
hoary wall where the ivy clings and flaunts, and the green 
lizards play in the sunshine, so tame they scarcely stir or 
hide in the crevices as the visitor's shadow touches them. 

" PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 

COR CORDIUM. 
NATUS IV. AUG. MDCCXCII. 
OBIT VIII. JULY MDCCCXXI. 

Nothing of him that doth fade 
But doth suffer a sea- change 
Into something rich and strange." 

Leigh Hunt and Trelawney have made familiar the 
strange sequel of a wild, strange life. Overtaken upon 
the Mediterranean by a sudden squall, Shelley had hardly 
time to start from his lounging-place on deck, and thrust 
into his jacket-pocket the copy of Keats' Lamia he was 
reading, when the yacht capsized. His body, with that 
of Williams, his friend and fellow-voyager, was cast on 
shore by the waves several days afterward, and burned in 
the presence of Byron, Trelawney, Hunt, and others. 

''Shelley, with his Greek enthusiasm, would not have 
been sorry to foresee this part of his fate," writes Hunt. 
Frankincense, wine and spices, together with Keats' vol- 
ume found in his pocket, open at the page he had been 
reading, were added to the flames. 

" The yellow sand and blue sky were intensely con- 
trasted with one another," continues the biographer. 
" Marble mountains touched the air with coolness, and 
the flame of the fire bore away toward heaven in vigorous 
amplitude, waving and quivering with a brightness of in- 



l'allegro and il penseroso. 227 

conceivable beauty. It seemed as though it contained 
the glassy essence of vitality." 

Trelawney's account of the ceremony is realistic and re- 
volting. The heart remained perfect amid the glowing 
embers, and Trelawney accredits himself with the pious 
act of snatching it from the fire. It and the ashes were 
sent to Rome for interment *' in the place which he had so 
touchingly described in recording its reception of Keats." 

On week-days, the little cemetery which we had to our- 
selves on Sabbath, is a popular resort for travelers. In- 
stead of the holy calm that to us, had become one with 
the caressing sunlight and violet-breath, the old wall 
gives back the chatter of shrill tongues and gruff respon- 
ses, as American women and English men trip and tramp 
along the paths in haste to ''do" this one of the Roman 
sights. We were by Shelley's tomb, one day, when a 
British matron approached, accompanied by two pretty 
daughters or nieces. Murray was open in her hand at 
" Burial-ground — English." 

''Ah, Shelley!" she cooed in the deep chest-voice af- 
fected by her class, screwing her eye-glass well in place 
before bringing it to bear upon the horizontal slab. " The 
poet and infidel, Shelley, me dears ! A man of some note 
in his day. I went to school with his sister, I remember. 
Quite a nice girl, too, I assure you. Poor Shelley ! it was 
a pity he imbibed such very-very sad notions upon certain 
subjects, for he really was not without ability ! " 

The fancy of how the wayward genius would have list- 
ened to these comments above a poet's grave would have 
provoked a smile from melancholy itself. 

In another quarter of the cemetery rests the mortal part 
of one whom we knew for ourselves, to have been a good 
man and a useful. Rev. N. C. Burt, formerly a Baltimore 
'pastor, died in Rome, whither he had come for health, and 



228 LOITERIXGS IX PLEASANT PATHS. 

sleeps under heartsease and violets that are never blighted 
by winter. 

" In so sweet a spot ! " We said it aloud, in gathering for 
his wife a cluster of white violets growing above his heart. 

Death and the grave cannot be made less fearful than 
in this garden of the blest : — 

** Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread." 

Keats is buried in the old cemetery, of which the new is 
an adjunct. It is bounded at the back by the Aurelian 
wall ; on two sides, by a dry moat, and the fourth by the 
pyramid of Cestius. An arched bridge crosses the narrow 
moat, and the gate is kept locked. On the side of the 
arch next his grave is a profile head of Keats in basso- 
rilievo ; beneath it, this acrostic — 

** Keats ! if thy cherished name be * writ in water,' 

Each drop has fallen from some mourner's cheek, — 
A sacred tribute, such as heroes s^ek, 
'Though oft in vain — for dazzling deeds of slaughter. 
Sleep on ! Not honored less for epitaph so meek !" 

The tomb is an upright head-stone, simple but massive, 
with the well-known inscription : — 

"This Grave 

Contains all that was Mortal 

of a 

Young English Poet 

Who 

on his Death Bed 

in the Bitterness of his Heart 

at the Malicious Power of his Enemies 

Desired 

these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone: 

" Here lies One 

Whose Name was writ in Water." 

. Feb. 24*'' 1821 " 



l'allegro and il penseroso. 229 

A marble bar runs around the sides and foot, and the 
space enclosed is literally covered with violets. An Eng- 
lish lady pays the expense of their renewal as fast as they 
die, or are plucked. They must bloom forever upon the 
grave of Keats. So runs her order. 

The custodian added to those he gave us, a rose and a 
sprig of a fragrant shrub that grew by the head-stone, and 
wondered politely when I knelt to pick the dasies smiling 
in the grass. 

''I gather and I shall preserve them," I explained, "be- 
cause when Keats was dying, he said — ' I feel the daisies 
growing over me ! ' " 

Daisies thronged the place all winter, and blossomed as 
abundantly in the sward on the other side of the moat. 
The most distinct mind-picture I have of those Sabbath 
afternoon walks and talks among and beside the dead 
shows me the broken battlements of the wall, the ivy 
streaming through the useless loop-holes ; the flowery 
slope of the graves down to the moat, on the other side of 
which lies Keats under his fragrant coverlet ; the solemn 
old pyramid casting a shadow upon turf and tomb, and in 
the foreground Boy skipping over the grass, "telling him- 
self a story," very softly because the silent sleepers are so 
near, or busily picking daisies to add to the basket of 
flowers that are to fill our salle with perfume until we 
come again. 

" So sweet a spot ! " 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Witk the Skeletons, 




N the Piazza Barberini is the Fountain of the Tri- 
ton by Bernini, one of the least objectionable of 
his minor works. A chubby, sonsie fellow is the 
young Triton, embrowned by wind, water and sun, seated 
in a shell, supported by four dolphins and blowing into a 
conch with a single eye to business that should, but does 
not act as a salutary example to the tribe of beggars, 
models and gossips who congregate around him. 

From the right of the spacious square leads the street 
on which stands the Palace of the Barberini, — I had nearly 
written the Bee-hive, so intimate grows the association be- 
tween the powerful family and these busy stingers to one 
who has studied the Barberini monuments, erected by 
them while living, and to them when defunct. I have 
consistently and resolutely refrained, thus far, from plying 
my readers with art-criticisms — fore-ordained to be skipped 
— of pictures and statues which do not interest those who 
have never seen them, and fail to satisfy those who have. 
I mention the picture of Beatrice Cenci by Guido Reni be- 
cause it is the most wonderful portrait extant. Before ' 
seeing it, I fairly detested the baby-face, with a towel 
wound about the head, that looked slyly backward at me 
from the window of every print-shop. Of the principal 



WITH THE SKELETONS. 231 

feature so raved about by Byronic youths and bilious 
school-girls, it might be said, — 

•* Thou hast no speculation in the eyes 
That thou dost glare with." 

The other lineaments would have been passable in a 
Paris doll. Believing these caricatures — or some of them 
—to be tolerable copies of the original, we lived in Rome 
four months; made ourselves pretty well acquainted with 
the half-dozen good pictures among the host of poor ones 
in the Palazzo Doria, and the choice gems in the small 
Academia di San Luca; we had seen the Aurora of the 
Rospiglioso, the Antinous upon the mantel in Villa Al- 
bani ; Venus Victrix and Daphne in the Borghese, and the 
unrivaled frescoes upon the walls and ceilings of the Pa- 
lazzo Farnese, besides going, on an average, once a week 
to the Capitoline and Vatican museums ;— yet never been 
persuaded by friends wiser or less prejudiced than we, to 
enter the meagrely supplied art-gallery of the Barberini 
Palace. When we did go it was with a languor of curi- 
osity clogging our steps and dulling our perceptions, 
which found no stimulus in the two outer apartments of 
the suite. There were the usual proportion of Holy Fami- 
lies, Magdalenes, and Portraits, to an unusual number of 
which conscientious Baedeker had affixed interrogation- 
points casting worse than doubt upon their origin;— Christ 
among the Doctors— which it is difficult to imagine was 
painted by Diirer, but easy to believe was ''done" in five 
days ; Raphael's Fornarina, a shade more brazen and a 
thought less handsome than the bar-maid of the same 
title, in the Uffizzi at Florence, and so plainly what she 
was, one is sorry to trace Raphael's name upon her brace- 
let. Then the guide suddenly turned toward the light 



232 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

a small, shabby frame hung upon a hinge — and a soul 
looked at us ! 

*' The very saddest picture ever painted or conceived. 
It involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of 

which came to the obsei-ver by a sort of intuition 

It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance and to 
feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her ; 
neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hope- 
lessness of the case better than we do." 

Hawthorne comprehended and expressed the spirit of 
the composition (if it be a fancy sketch, as latter-day icon- 
oclasts insinuate), and the language of the doomed girl's 
eyes. Even he has told but a part of the story; given but 
a hint of the nature of the charm that holds cool critic 
and careless stroller spell-bound before this little square 
of canvas. There is sorcery in it pen nor tongue can de- 
fine. It haunted and tormented us until the possession 
was provoking. After coming many times to experience 
the same thrill — intense to suifering if we gazed long; — 
after dreaming of her by day and by night, and shunning, 
more disgustfully than ever, the burlesques in the shops — 
^'the poor girl with the blubbered eyes," — we tried to for- 
get her. It was weak to be thus swayed by a twenty-inch 
painting; unworthy of people who fearlessly pronounced 
Perugino stiff, and had not been overwhelmed to rapturous 
incoherence by the sprawling anatomical specimens left 
by Michael Angelo to the guild of art-lovers under the 
name of the "Last Judgment." Saying and feeling thus, 
— we took every opportunity of slipping without premedi- 
tation, or subsequent confession into the Barberini Palace; 
— finally leaving the picture and Rome, no better able to ac- 
count for our fascination than after our first grudging visit. 

Returning to the square of the Triton after one of these 
bootless excursions, we ascended a short avenue to the 



WITH THE SKELETONS. 233 

plain old church of the Capuchins. A Barberini founded 
this also, and the convent next door, — a cardinal, and 
brother to Urban VIII. He made less use of the bees and 
Bernini in his edifices than did his kinsman. That he had 
a juster appreciation of true genius, was evinced by his 
hospitable attentions to Milton when he was in Rome. 
Church annals record, moreover, the circumstance that 
Cardinal Barberini availed himself no further of the family 
wealth and aggrandizement than to give liberally to the 
poor and endow this church and monastery. He is buried 
beneath the high altar, and a modest stone bears the oft- 
borrowed epitaph — ^'' Hie jacet pulvis, cinis, et nihil!" 

There are famous paintings in this church, — the chapel 
nearest the entrance containing Guido Reni's '*St. Mi- 
chael," while upon the walls of the next but one is a fine 
fresco of the ''Death of St. Francis," by Domenichino. 
The crypts are, however, the popular attraction of the 
place. 

The burial-vaults of the Capuchin brotherhood are not 
vaults at all in the sense of subterranean chambers. They 
are four in number, of fair size, open on one side to the 
corridor which is lighted by grated windows. The inner 
walls are banks and rows of dried skeletons, whole and 
dismembered. 

'' Does it take long to upholster an apartment in this 
style ? " asked Mark Twain, contemplating the decorations 
of the crypt. 

The wicked witticism sounded in our ears in his exqui- 
site drawl, as, amazed to discover how slightly shocked we 
were, we raised curious eyes to the geometrical figures 
traced in raised lines upon the ceiling. These are com- 
posed of the small bones of the human form, skillfully as- 
sorted and matched. Pillars and niches are built of thigh, 
leg and arm bones. Each niche has its skeleton, stayed 



234 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

in an upright posture by a cord knotted about his waist, 
securing him to a hook behind. All wear the costume of 
the order* — a butternut-colored gown, the cowl framing 
the skull. Some tiny skeletons lie upon compact beds of 
bones close to the ceiling. 

''Children!" we said, in French, to the guide. ''How 
is that ? " 

" Children of the Barberini," was the answer. " There- 
fore, entitled to a place here. Our founder was a Barbe- 
rini." 

"And were they buried for awhile, and then disturbed — 
dug up ? " 

"Why not?" 

He was a stalwart fellow, with bare, horny feet ; a rusty 
beard falling below his breast ; and a surly face, that did 
not relax at these questions, nor at our comments, in our 
own tongue, upon what we saw. 

The floor of the chambers is light, mellow soil, like that 
of lately weeded and raked flower-beds. To carry out the 
conceit, rows of sticks, labeled, were stuck along one side, 
that might mark seed-rows. So much of the original soil 
as remains there was brought from Jerusalem. In each 
grave a deceased monk slumbers twenty-five years, then 
makes room for the next comer, and is, himself, promoted, 
intact or piece-meal, as architectural needs demand — 

" To a place in the dress, or the family circle," supplied 
Prima, with praiseworthy gravity. 

Caput, usually an exemplar in the matter of decorum, 
was now tempted to a quotation as irreverent as the saucy 
girl's comment. 

" ' Each of the good friars in his turn, enjoys the luxury 
of a consecrated bed, attended with the slight drawback 
of being forced to get up long before day-break, as it were, 
and make room for another lodger.'" 



WITH THE SKELETONS, 235 

" Miriam's model, known to the friars as Brother An- 
tonio, was buried in the farthest recess," said I, leading 
the way to it. " Do you remember that he lay in state 
before the altar up-stairs when she and Donatello visited 
the church ? And how the guide explained that a brother, 
buried thirty years before, had risen to give him place ? 
That is probably the ejected member." 

The w^orthy designated wore an air of grim jollity, of 
funereal festivity, indescribable and irresistible. Dang- 
ling by the middle from his hempen girdle, his head on 
one shoulder, his cowl awry, he squinted at us out of its 
shadow with a leer that would have convicted of drunken- 
ness anybody less holy than a barefoot friar, and less staid 
of habit than a skeleton of fifty years' standing. Struggling 
to maintain composure, I accosted the sacristan. He was 
standing with his back to us, looking out of the window, 
and had certainly not seen our smiles. 

'•'' Which of these was disinterred last ?" 

He pointed to one whose robe was less mouldy than the 
rest, and upon whose chin yet bristled the remnant of a 
sandy beard. 

'' Which was his grave ? " 

Another silent gesture. 

*' What is the date of the latest interment ?" 
, '' 1869," incisively. 

'■'■ Have there been no deaths in the convent since then ? '* 

''Yes!" The disdainful growl was in good EfigHsh. 
''We bury no more in this ground. Victor Emmanuel 
forbids it ! " 

An Italian murmur in the depths of his frowsy beard 
was not a benediction upon the tyrant. Members of mo- 
nastic orders cursed him more deeply in private, as they 
w^ould have banned him openly, by bell and by book, had 
they dared, when he commanded, that same year, the con- 



236 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

scription of young men for the Italian army to extend to 
the native-born neophytes and pupils in convents and 
church-schools. 

" ViTTORio Emmanuele ! " The musical name was very 
clearly printed at the foot of a placard, glazed and hung 
in the vestibule of the Collegio Romano. Guide-books 
of a date anterior to that enunciated so venomously 
by our Capuchin, in describing the museum attached to 
this institution, were fain to add : — ''The museum can be 
seen on Sundays only, lo-ii o'clock, a.m. Ladies not 
admitted." 

By the grace of the printed proclamation, throwing 
open the collection of antiquities and library to well-be- 
haved persons of both sexes, we passed the unguarded 
doors, mounted the stone staircase, dirty as are all Roman 
stairs, and were, without let or hindrance, in the midst of 
w^hat we wished to examine and from which there is no 
conceivable reason for excluding women. 

Most of the Catacomb inscriptions that could be remov- 
ed without injury to the tablets bearing them, have been 
deposited elsewhere for safe-keeping and more satisfactory 
inspection than is consistent with the darkness of the un- 
derground cemeteries. The shelves, arranged like those in 
modern vaults, stripped of the stone fronts that once con- 
cealed their contents, are still partially filled with fine ashes 
— sacred dust, mixed with particles from the friable earth 
w^alling and flooring the labyrinth of narrow passages. 
Fragments of sculptured marble lie where they have fallen 
from broken altars or memorial slabs, and in the wider 
spaces used as oratories, wiiere burial-rites were performed, 
and, in times of sorest tribulation, other religious services 
held, there are traces of frescoes in faded, but still distin- 
guishable colors. 

In the Collegio Romano are garnered most interesting 



WITH THE SKELETONS. 23/ 

specimens of the mural tablets brought from catacombs 
and columbaria. The Christian Museum of San Giovanni 
in Laterano embraces a more extensive collection, but in 
the less spacious corridors and rooms of the Collegio, one 
sees and studies in comfort and quiet that are not to be 
had in the more celebrated halls. In the apartment de- 
voted to Christian antiquities are many small marble cof- 
fers, sculptured more or less elaborately, taken from colum- 
baria. These were receptacles for the literal ashes of the 
departed. They are out of keeping with our belief that 
the early Christians regarded incremation with dread as 
destructive, in the popular mind, of the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the body. They committed their beloved 
dead tenderly to the keeping of the earth, with a full rec- 
ognition of the analogy between this act and seed-plant- 
ing, so powerfully set forth by St. Paul. Else, why the 
Catacombs ? These cinerary caskets, whether once ten- 
anted by Christian or pagan dust, merit careful notice. 
They are usually about twelve or fourteen inches in height, 
and two or three less in width. The lid slopes gently up 
from the four sides to form a peaked centre like a square 
house-roof, with pointed turrets or ears at the corners. 
The covers were firmly cemented in place w^hen deposited 
in the columbaria. We saw one or two thus secured to 
protect the contents, but all have probably been broken 
open, at one time or another, in quest of other treasure 
than relics precious to none save loving survivors. The 
lids of many have been lost. 

The mural slabs were arranged against the wall as high 
as a man could reach. The lettering— much of it irregu- 
larly and unskillfully done— is more distinct than epitaphs 
not thirty years old, in our country church-yards. The 
inscriptions are often ungrammatical and so spelt as to be- 
trav the illiterate workman. But there is no doubt what 



238 



LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 



were the belief and trust of those who set them up in the 
blackness and damps of a Necropolis whose existence was 
scarcely suspected by their persecutors. 

*' In Christo, in pace," is the language of many, the 
♦meaning of all. It may be only a cross rudely cut into 
soft stone ; it is often a lamb, sometimes carrying a cross ; 
a dove, a spray meant for olive, in its mouth — dual em- 
blem of peace and the '' rest that remaineth." The Greek 
Alpha and Omega, repeated again and again, testify that 
these hunted and smitten ones had read John's glorious 
Revelation. On all sides, we saw the, to heathen revilers, 
mystical cypher, early adopted as a sign and seal by the 
Christians, a capital P, transfixing a St. Andrew's Cross. 

From one stained little slab, we copied an inscription 
entire and verbatim. 




Puer Decessit 
Nomine Dulcis'us 



Qui vixit 
Annos V 
Mensis VI 




Above Benjamin Franklin's baby-daughter, buried beside 
him in the almost forgotten corner of an intra-mural grave- 
yard, we can, with pains, read — *' The dearest child that ever 
ivasy We thought of it and of another *' child " whose 
brief, beautiful life is summed up in words as apt and 
almost as few : — 

" Tlie sweetest soul 
That ever looked with human eyes." 



WITH THE SKELETONS. 239 

O., holy NatuiH! the throbbing, pierced heart of parent- 
hood ! the same in the breast of the mother who laid her 
boy to sleep, until the morning, in the starless night of the 
Catacombs, as within the Rachel who weeps to-day beside 
the coffin of her first, or latest-born ! 

We had seen the wall in Nero's barracks from which the 
famous '■'■Graffito Blasphemo" -vj^ls taken, about ten years 
before. To behold the sketch itself was one of our errands 
to this Museum. It is a square of cement, of adamantine 
hardness, in a black frame, and hangs in a conspicuous 
position at the end of the principal corridor. The story, as 
gathered from the caricature and the place in which it was 
discovered, is probably something like this : — A party of 
Nero's soldiery, gathered in a stall or barrack belonging 
to the Imperial household, amused themselves by ridiculing 
one of their number who had been converted to Christi- 
anity. Paul was, about that time, dwelling in his own 
hired house in Rome, or as a prisoner awaiting trial or exe- 
cution. A part of the richly-sculptured marble bar indi- 
cating the Tribune in the Basilica Jovis, before which he 
was tried, is still standing, not a bow-shot from where the 
lounging guards made a jest of their comrade's new faith. 
One of them drew, with the point of his sword, or other 
sharp instrument, upon the plastered wall, a rough carica- 
ture, representing a man with the head of an ass, hanging 
upon a cross. His hands are bound to the transverse arms, 
his feet rest upon a shorter cross-piece fastened to the up- 
right beam. From this position, the head looks down upon 
a small figure below, who raises his hand in a gesture of 
adoration more intelligible to the pagan of that date than 
to us. A jumble of Greek and Latin characters, crowded 
between and under the figures, points the ribald satire, 
^^ Alexamenos adores his God." Nero went to his account. 
The very site of his Golden House is a matter of dispute 



240 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

among archaeologists who have bared the foundations of 
the palace of the Caesars. But after eighteen hundred 
years, when the rubbish was dug out from the soldiers' 
quarters, there appeared the blasphemer's sketch, as dis- 
tinct as if drawn at last week's debauch. 

From the observatory of the CoUegio Romano a signal 
is given daily, at twelve o'clock, for the firing of the noon 
cannon from the Castle of San Angelo. As we entered 
the Piazza di Spagna on our return, the dull boom shook 
the air. The streets were full of people, the day being a 
fine one in early Spring, and, as happens every day in the 
year, every man, from the cocchiere upon his box, to the 
elegant strolling along the shady side of the square to 
digest his eleven o'clock breakfast, looked at his watch. 
Not that the Romans are a punctual people, or moderately 
industrious. *'The man who makes haste, dies early," is 
one of their mottoes. '•'' Dolce far niente'' belongs to them 
by virtue of tongue and practice. '' Lazzaroni " should 
be spelled with one z, and include, according to the sense 
thus conveyed to English ears, tens of thousands besides 
professional beggars. 

There is no pleasanter place in which to be lazy than in 
this bewitching old city. Our own life there was an idyl, 
rounded and pure, such as does not come twice to the 
same mortal. The climate, they would have had us believe 
w^as the bane of confiding strangers, was to us all blessed- 
ness. Not one of us was ill for a day while we resided in 
the cozy ^^ appai'tamento'' in Via San Sebastiano ; nor was 
there a death, that winter, among American visitors and 
residents in Rome. For myself, the soft air was curatiA^e 
to the sore lungs ; a delicious sedative that quieted the 
nerves and brought the boon, long and vainly sought — 
Sleep ! My cough left me w^ithin a month, not to return 
while we remained in Italy. We made the natural mistake 



WItH THE SKELETONS. 241 

of tarrying too late in the Spring, unwilling to leave scenes 
so fair, fraught with such food for Memory and for Im- 
agination. After mid- April, the noon-day heat was debili- 
tating, and I suffered appreciable diminution of vigor. 

I, do not apologize for these personal details. Knowing 
how eagerly invalids, and those who have invalid friends, 
crave information respecting the means that have restored 
health to others, I write frankly of my own experience 
in quest of the lost treasure. It would be strange if I 
could think of Rome and our home there without felt and 
uttered gratitude. Convalescence was, with me, less a 
rally of energies to battle with disease and weakness, than 
a gradual return, by ways of pleasantness and paths of 
peace, to physical tranquillity, and through rest, to strength. 
I hardly comprehended, for awhile, that I was really get- 
ting better ; that I might be well again in time. I only 
knew that to breathe was no longer pain, nor to live labor 
that taxed the powers of body and spirit to the utmost. 
There was so much to draw me away from the contempla- 
tion of my own griefs and ailments that I could have sup- 
posed the new existence a delusion, my amendment a trick 
of fancy. I forgot to think of and watch myself. I had 
all winter but one return — and that a slight one, induced 
by unusual exertion — of the haemorrhages that had alarmed 
us, from time to time, for two years preceding our depart- 
ure from America. The angel of healing had touched 
me, and I knew it not. 

One morning I had gone, as was my custom, to a win- 
dow in thesa/on, so soon as I left my bed-chamber; thrown 
it open and leaned upon the balcony-railing to taste the 
freshness of the new day. We clung to our pillows, as a 
family rule, until the sonorous cry of the vendor of a 
morning journal arose to our drowsy ears. 

*' Popolo Ro-ma-a-no ! " 
II 



242 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

"There is Old Popolo ! " Boy would shout from his crib. 
" It is eight o'clock ! " 

It was half-past eight on the day of which I speak, and 
the shops were not yet open ; the Piazza deserted but for 
a flo^k of goats and the attendant contadini who milked 
them from one door to another for their customers. Birds 
were twittering among the trees in the Pincian Gardens 
upon my left; there was a lingering flush of pink in the 
sky that would be, within an hour and until evening, of 
the "incomparable sweet" blue, American heavens put on 
after one thunder-shower, and before another blackens 
them. In Italy nobody calls the exquisite depth of color 
"a weather-breeder." A church-bell was ringing so far 
away that it was a musical pulse, not a chime. Down the 
Via della Croce to my right, over half a mile of tiled roofs, 
round and distinct in the dry, pure atmosphere, towered 
the Castle of San Angelo — the bronze angel on the summit 
sheathing the sword of pestilence, as Pope Gregory af- 
firmed he beheld him at the approach to the Tiber of the 
penitential procession headed by the pontiff. As the goats 
turned into the Via del Babuino, the faint tinkle of their 
bells was blent with the happy laugh of a young contadina. 
I quaffed slow, delicious draughts of refreshment that 
seemed to touch and lift the heart; that lulled the brain 
to divinest dreaming. 

Then and there, I had a revelation ; bowed my soul be- 
fore my Angel of Annunciation. I should not die, but live. 
Then and thus, I accepted the conviction that, apart from 
the intellectual delight I drew from our present life — the 
ministry of sky and air, of all goodly sights and sounds 
and the bright-w^inged fancies that were a continual 
ecstasy, was to my body — Health ! That hour I thanked 
God and took courage ! 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

''Paul — a Prisoner'' 

UST outside of the Ostian Gate is the pyramid 
of Caius Cestius — Tribune, Praetor and Priest, 
who died thirty years before Christ was born, and 
left a fortune to be expended in glorification of himself 
and deeds. The^ monument is one hundred and twenty 
feet high, nearly one hundred feet square at the base, 
built of brick and overlaid with marble slabs. Modeled 
after the Egyptian mausoleums, and unaccountably spared 
by Goth and Pope, it stands to day, after the more merci- 
ful wear and tear of twenty centuries, entire, and virtually 
unharmed. Alexander VII., when he had the rubbish 
cleared away from the base, also ordered a door to be cut 
in the side. The body, or ashes of Cestius had been de- 
posited in the centre of the pyramid before its completion, 
and hermetically inclosed by the stupendous walls. What 
was done with the handful of dust that had been august 
and a member of the College of Epulones, appointed to 
minister by sacrifices to the gods, history does not relate. 
The great pile contains one empty chamber contemptible 
in dimensions by comparison with the superficies of the 
exterior. The walls of this retain signs of frescoes, de- 
signed for the delectation of the dead noble, and such 
ghostly visitants as were able to penetrate the marble 
facing and twenty feet of brick laid with Roman cement. 



244 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

The custodian of the English burial-ground has the key 
of Alexander's door, and shows the vault for a considera- 
tion. Nobody goes to see it a second time. 

The Ostian Gate is now the Porta S. Paolo, and is a 
modern structure. Here begins the Via Ostiensis, in St. 
Paul's life-time, the thronged road to Rome's renowned 
sea-port. Ostia is now a wretched fishing-village of less 
than one hundred inhabitants. Over the intervening 
country broods malaria, winter and summer. Conybeare 
and Howson have told us in words that read like the nar- 
rative of an eye-witness, how the route looked when, 
*' through the dust and tumult of that busy throng, the 
small troop of soldiers " — having Paul in charge — 
"threaded their way under the bright sky of an Italian 
midsummer." 

The silence and desolation of the Campagna on the 
February day of our excursion to Tre Fontane, or Aquas 
Salvias, — the Tyburn of the Romans under the Emperors, 
were as depressing as the seen shadow of Death. The 
sunlight brought out warm umber tints upon the gray 
sides of the pyramid. Children, ragged and happy, rolled 
in the dust and basked in the sun before the mean houses 
on the wayside. Women in short, russet skirts, blue or 
red bodices, with gay handkerchiefs, folded square, laid 
upon the top of the head and hanging down the back of 
the neck, nursed brown babies and spun flax in open 
doors, or sitting flat upon the ground. Men drank and 
smoked in and about the wine-shops, talking with such 
vehemence of gesticulation as would frighten those who 
did not know that the subject of debate was no more im- 
portant than the price of macaroni, or the effect of yester- 
day's rain upon the growing artichokes. 

But, from the moment our short procession of three 
carriages emerged from the city-gate and took the road to 



*'PAUL — A PRISONER." 245 

Ostia, the most mercurial spirit amongst us felt the weight 
as of a remembered sorrow. We had seen the opening 
in the floor of the lower chapel of S. Pietro in Montorio, 
where S. Peter's cross had stood, and the golden sand in 
which the foot of it was imbedded; groped down the steps 
of the Mamertine Prison, and felt our way by torchlight 
around the confines of the cell in which both of the Great 
Apostles, it is said, perhaps truly, were incarcerated up to 
the day of their martyrdom. We had surveyed the magni- 
ficence, without parallel even in Rome, of the Basilica of 
St. Paul's Without the Walls ; the very sepulchre of St. 
Paul, the ostensible reason for this affluence of ecclesias- 
tical grandeur, and believed exactly as much and as little 
as we pleased of what the Church told us of localities, and 
authorities in support of the authenticity of these. But 
the evidence that St. Paul was beheaded near Rome, in 
Via Ostiensis, was irrefragable. There was no ground for 
cavil in the statement, sustained by venerable traditions, 
that he perished at Tre Fontane. 

Half-way between the Gate of St. Paul and the Basilica, 
is a squalid chapel, the entrance rather lower than the 
street, with an indifferent bas-relief over the door, of two 
men locked in one another's arms. Here — according to 
the apocryphal epistle of St. Dionysius the Areopagite 
to Timothy— Peter and Paul, who, Jerome states, were 
executed upon the same day, parted. Besides the bas- 
relief, the tablet over the lintel records their farewell 
words : 

''And Paul said unto Peter, — 'Peace be with thee. 
Foundation of the Church, Shepherd of the Flock of 
Christ ! '" 

"And Peter said unto Paul, — ' Go in peace. Preacher 
of Good Tidings, and Guide of the Salvation of the 
Just!'" 



246 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

We were in no mood to make this one of the stations of 
our pious journey. Nor did we stop at the Basilica, the 
dingy outside of which offers no promise of the superb 
interior. Beyond the church spread the sad-colored Cam- 
pagna, irresponsive to the sunshine, unbroken save by 
leafless coppices and undulations where the surface rolled 
into hillocks that caught no light, and into hollows of deeper 
gloom. A few peasants' huts upon the edge of a common, 
and mounds of shapeless ruins, are all the signs of human 
habitation, past or present. It is unutterably mournful — 
this '' wilderness that moans at the gates " of the seven- 
hilled city. The sun was oppressive in the unshaded road, 
although the sky w^as filmy, and the horses moved slug- 
gishly. Ours was a funeral cortege, following the figure 
loving fancies set before us in the lonely highway. An 
old man, enfeebled by imprisonment, by ''weariness and 
painfulness, by w^atchings often, by hunger and thirst, 
by fastings often, by cold and nakedness," yet pressing 
forward, ready and joyful to be offered. We had read, 
last night, in anticipation of this pilgrimage, his farewell 
letter to his adopted son ; noted, as we had not in previous 
perusals, his confident expectation of this event ; and the 
yearning of the great, tender heart over this dearest of 
earthly friends, — his desire to see him once more before 
his departure breaking in upon his clearest views of Heav- 
en and the Risen Lord. It was the backward glance of a 
father from the top of the hill that will hide the group of 
watching children from his eyes. 

*' Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of right- 
eousness, which the Lord — the righteous Judge — shall give 
me at that day." 

( This was after he had been brought before Nero the 
first time, where—" no man stood with me, but all men for- 
sook me.") 



"PAUL — A PRISONER." 24/ 

'' And not unto me only, but unto all them also that love 
His appearing. 

" Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me ! " 
And, again : — '^The Lord shall deliver me from every 
evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly king- 
dom. To whom be glory forever and ever ! Amen ! 
*' Do thy diligence to come to me before winter ! " 
He had not thought his end so near, then. The likeli- 
hood is that he was hurried to the judgment the second 
time, and sentence speedily pronounced. He may have 
been still bewildered by this haste when he walked with his 
escort, along the road to Ostia. It was June, and the sun 
beat fiercely upon his head. After the cool twilight of the 
dungeon, the air must have scorched like furnace-vapors. 
He would be very weary before the three miles beyond 
the gates were accomplished, unless the rapturous certainty 
that he would, that very day, stand face-to-face with Him 
who also suffered without the gate, lightened the burden 
of heavy limbs and fainting flesh. 

A high wall, rising abruptly from barren fields, incloses 
three churches, a small monastery, a flower and kitchen- 
garden, and some rows of thrifty Eucalyptus trees. Thus 
much we saw, through the grating of the gate, while 
awaiting the answer to our ring. A monk admitted us. 
The Convent was made over to the Order of La Trappe in 
1868. Twelve brethren, by the help of Eucalyptus and 
the saints, live here, defying isolation and malaria. Their 
rules are strict, enjoining many fastings and prayers. They 
wear sandals instead of shoes, and have, therefore, the 
shuffling gait inseparably connected, in our minds, with 
pietistic pretension. A man in loose slippers recalls the 
impression to this day. The habit of the order is brown 
cloth, and is worn day and night, without change, for three 
years, when it is laid aside — or drops off of its own weight 



248 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and threadbareness — for a new one. Our monk had don- 
ned his — we estimated, cliaritably — just two years and 
eleven months anterior to our acquaintance with him, and 
eaten onions three times every day. He w^as a social 
brother, alert and garrulous, and shortly grew more gallant 
to the young ladies of our party than became his asceti- 
cism and his paucity of front teeth. He stared open-mouth- 
ed — consequently, disagreeably — at our refusal to enter the 
church nearest the gate. 

"It is the church of Santa Maria Scala Coeli ! " he rep- 
resented, earnestly. Twelve thousand Christian martyrs, 
who built the Thermae of Diocletian, slumber beneath it. 
Holy St. Bernard had here a dream of angels carrying 
souls up a ladder from purgatory to heaven." 

" Very interesting ! " we acknowledged, suavely. *' But 
our time is short ! " 

The brother regretted. *' But messieurs and mesdames 
will not pass the second door ! The church of Saints Vin- 
cenzo and Anastasia. Very antique, founded in 625. One 
sees there, still, frescoes celebrating the deaths of these 
holy men, by cooking upon a gridiron and by strangling. 
Mesdemoiselles will enjoy looking upon these." 

Unmoved by his tempting lures, we passed on to the 
third, last, and evidently, in his opinion, the least attrac- 
tive of the three edifices — San Paolo alle tre Fontane. He 
followed, discontented, but always obsequious. 

The vestibule walls are adorned wath bas-reliefs of St. 
Paul's execution in the presence of Roman guards. The 
pavement of the church is a large and fine mosaic, found 
in the ruins of ancient Ostia. The subject is the Four Sea- 
sons, and the monk, checking us when we would have 
trodden upon it, threw himself into a studied transport of 
admiration. There was not another mosaic like it in Italy. 
Contemplate the brilliant dyes ! the graceful contour of 



'*PAUL — A PRISONER." 249 

the figures ! Artists from all lands flocked to the Abbey 
delle tre Fontane, entreating permission from the Superior 
to copy it. 

We broke the thread impatiently from the reel. We 
were here to see where St. Paul was beheaded. 

^ ^ Vraimenf?" ^olitQljy smothering his chagrin. "But, 
certainly ! Upon that block in the corner ! " 

It was a pillar, not a block, and marble, not wooden. 
An imposition so bare-faced did not pass unchallenged. 
We argued that the pillar was modern in workmanship, 
and too clean. No blood-stains disfigured its whiteness. 

''There had been blood-stains without doubt. Beyond 
question, also, the kisses and tears of the faithful had 
erased them." 

But it was absurd, unheard of, to talk of decapitation 
upon a stone block, waiving objections to the height and 
shape of this. The axe, in severing the head, would be 
spoiled utterly by contact with the hard surface beneath. 

'' So I should have said. Monsieur. It is the dictate of 
le bon sens^ Madame ! But me — I am here to repeat what 
the Church instructs me to say. When I arrive at this so 
holy place, I find the pillar here, as you see it — protected 
by an iron rail from destruction at the hands and lips of 
devotees. I am told, ' It is the pillar on which was cut off 
the head of St. Paul the Blessed Martyr.' Who am I, 
a poor lay-brother, that I should doubt the decree of the 
Church ? " 

Seeing absolution in our faces after this frank confes- 
sion, he entered, with interest, upon the history of the 
three fountains enclosed in as many marble altars, ranged 
at one side of the church. In the front of each is an open- 
ing large enough to admit the hand, arm, and a drinking- 
cup kept ready for dipping. Above each aperture is a 
head of Paul in bas-relief. In the first, the eyes are open, 



2SO LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the features instinct with life. The second portrays the 
relaxed lineaments of a dying man, the third, the rigidity 
of death in closed eyelids and sunken cheeks. Keeping 
close to the letter of the lesson he had been taught, our 
unsavory cicerone related that the Apostle's head made 
three bounds upon the earth after its separation from the 
body, and that at each touch a fountain had burst forth. 
To establish the truth of the miracle to unbelievers in all 
ages, no less than to kindle the enthusiasm of true wor- 
shippers at this shrine, the water of the first spring is still 
warm ; of the second, tepid ; of the third, ice-cold. 

'' Will Mademoiselle," turning to the young girl near 
him, and grimacing in what was meant to be a fascinating 
fashion — " Will Mademoiselle vouchsafe to taste the heal- 
ing waters ? For that they are a veritable catholicon is 
attested by many cures. Or, is it that Mademoiselle is 
never ill? Her blooming cheeks w^ould say, *No.' Ah, 
then, so much the better ! A draught of the miraculous 
fountains — accompanied, of course, by an 'Ave Maria,' is 
efficacious in procuring a husband. May he be un bon 
Catholique ! " 

But one of the company tasted the waters, and she 
affirmed roundly — in English, for our benefit, in French 
for the friar's — that the temperature of all three was the 
same. 

''That is because you have not faith!" chuckled the 
lay-brother, throwing what was left in the cup upon 
the Four Seasons. " The Catholic husband will cure all 
that ! " 

His cackling laugh was odious, his torrent of talk weari- 
some. We hurried to escape them by quitting the church 
and proffering the gate-fee, a franc for each person. At 
sight of the money, he ceased laughing and began to w^hine. 
The fees were the property of the Convent. For himself, 



"PAUL— A PRISONER." 251 

he had no perquisites save such as he earned from the sale 
of Eucalyptus syrup. Unlocking the door of a store-house, 
he showed us shelves crowded with bottles of the elixir, 
prepared by the brethren, and used freely by them in the 
sickly season. Formerly, we were informed, no one could 
live here even in winter. The place was a miasmatic 
swamp, the churches and abbey were almost in ruins. But 
the monks of La Trappe enjoyed in an extraordinary 
degree (the whine rising into a sanctimonious sing-song) 
the favor of Our Lady and the saints. They stayed here, 
the year around, encouraged by His Holiness the Pope in 
the cultivation of the Eucalyptus, chiefly, that the elixir 
might be bestowed upon the contadini who ventured to 
live in the pestilential district, and charitable forestieri^ 
(foreigners) unused to the climate. We assured him, coldly, 
that we would not buy medicine we did not need, and 
satisfied his benevolent intentions us-ward, by paying him 
for some flowers and pieces of marble we brought away as 
souvenirs. We left him standing in the gateway, grin- 
ning at the young ladies, and breathing so hard that we 
imagined we smelt garlic and sour wine a hundred yards 
down the road. 

'*A filthy cur!" uttered Caput, and nobody said him 
nay. 

Even the demon of malaria might scorn such prey. 

We were told by those qualified by long residence in 
Italy to speak advisedly concerning these matters, that, 
while the priesthood of that country comprises many men 
eminent for learning, the mass of minor ecclesiastics, 
especially in the country, are ignorant and vulgar beyond 
our powers of credence. For ages, the monastic orders 
have been a swarm of caterpillars, battening upon the fat 
of the land, and blighting, while they devoured. To the 
King, who let the light into their nests, clearing out many. 



252 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and leaving in the nest only those who were too infirm to 
begin a work, so unfamiliar to them all, as earning 
their livelihood — the thanks of civilization and philan- 
thropy are due. 

So harshly had our experiences in the church jarred 
upon the mood in which we had approached it, that we 
could not, as it were, get back to St. Paul that day. We 
deferred the pilgrimage to his supposed tomb until we 
were in better tune. 

Tradition — '^ the elder sister of history " — asserts that as 
devout men carried Stephen to his burial, Paul's friends 
and converts, including persons of influence in the city, 
even some attaches of the Imperial household, took charge 
of h's remains. It is interesting to note the names of cer- 
tain disciples, who were, we know, of that faithful band. 
Clement, of Rome, w^iose writings and whose Basilica 
remain with us unto the present day ; Claudia, a British 
Princess, a Christian convert, and the protegee of an 
Emperor ; Pudens, her husband, whose daughter and hers 
was the foundress of the primitive Cathedral of Rome. 

This church — I digress to state — is now joined to a con- 
vent in Via Quatro Fontane. It occupies the site of the 
house of the daughters of Pudens — Prudentia and Praxe- 
des. Or — w^hat is more likely, — it was an enlargement 
of the family chapel — or '' Basilica." The repute of these 
sisters, the children of the noble pair w^ho were Paul's fel- 
low-laborers, has descended to us by more trustworthy 
channels than those through which church-legends are 
generally transmitted. In the early persecutions their 
house was a refuge for the fugitive, a hospital for the 
wounded and dying, — a sacred morgue for bodies cast forth 
from torture-chamber and scaffold, to be eaten of dogs 
and crows. In one of the chapels of the old church is a 
mosaic of these sisters of mercy, pressing sponges soaked 



''PAUL — A PRISONER. 253 

in martyrs' blood into a golden urn. Another depicts 
them in the presence of their enthroned Lord, and, stand- 
ins: near, Paul and Peter. The women hold between them 
the martyr's crown, earned for themselves by fidelity to 
the Faith and friends of their parents. 

One of Paul's disciples was a Roman matron named 
Lucina, who — to return to our tradition — gained posses- 
sion of the Apostle's lifeless body, and buried it in her 
own catacomb or vineyard in the vicinity of the Ostian 
Gate. Eusebius says the catacomb was shown in his 
day; Chrysostom, that ''the grave of St. Paul is well 
known." 

"St. Cyprian" — writes Macduff — '4s the interpreter, in 
a single sentence, of the sentiment of the faithful in those 
ages : ' To the bodies of those who depart by the outlet of a 
glorious death, let a more zealous watchfulness be given. ' Can 
we believe that those who by means of rude sarcophagi 
and inscriptions in the vaults of the Catacombs, took such 
pains to mark the dormitory of their sainted dead, would 
omit rearing a befitting memorial in the case of their il- 
lustrious spiritual chief ? " 

From the same catacomb have been unearthed inscrip- 
tions belonging to the Pauline era. The story was so 
thoroughly believed in the reign of Constantine that he 
built the original Basilica of St. Paul's above this cata- 
comb, and placed the bones of Paul, or relics supposed to 
be his, within the crypt. Since that date, this church has 
had them in ward. 

With these credentials fresh in our memories, we took 
advantage of a very mild morning whose influences some- 
what tempered the chill of aisles and chapels, to make 
a prolonged examination of San Paolo-fuori-le-mura — St. 
Paul's-beyond-the-Wall. The outside is, as I have inti- 
mated, tamely ugly. He who passes it by will remember 



254 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

it as the least comely of the hundred unsightly churches 
in and about the city. From the moment one enters the 
immense nave, — stands between the columns of yellowish 
alabaster, presented by Mehemet Ali, which are the pre- 
lude to a double rank of eighty monoliths of polished 
granite, cut from the Simplon, — to his exit, the spectacle 
is one of bewildering magnificence. Macduff likens the 
floor to a *'sea of glass," nor is the figure overstrained. 
The illusion is heightened by the reflection upon the 
highly-polished surface of the brilliant tints of the series 
of mosaic medallions, each the portrait of a pope, set in 
the upper part of the wall and girdling, in a sweep of 
splendor, nave and transept. The blending and shimmer 
of the gorgeous colors upon the marble mirror are Like 
the tremulous motion of a lake just touched by the 
breeze. The costliest marbles, such as we are used to 
see wrought into small ornaments for the homes of the 
wealthy, are here employed with lavishness that makes 
tales of oriental luxury altogether credible, and the Ara- 
bian Nights plausible. Alabaster, malachite, rosso and 
verde-antique are wrought into columns and altars, and 
each chapel has its especial treasure of sculpture and 
painting. The pictures in the Chapel of St. Stephen, 
representing the trial and death of the martyr, would, by 
themselves, make the church noteworthy. 

Surrounded by this inconceivable wealth of splendor, 
rises a baldacchino surmounted by a dome, supported by 
four pillars of red alabaster, also the gift of the Turkish 
Pacha. An angel stands at each corner of the canopy. 
Within this miniature temple is another, and an older, 
being the altar-canopy, saved from the fire that, in 
1823, destroyed the greater portion of the ancient build- 
ing. Under this, again, is the marble altar — crimson 
and emerald — enshrining it is said, the bones of St. 



*'PAUL — A PRISONER." 255 

Paul. The inscription runs along the four sides of the 
baldacchino : 

** tu es vas electionis. 
Sancte Paule Apostole. 
Pr.^dicator veritatis. 
In universo mundo." 

A railing, inclosing an area of perhaps a dozen yards, 
prevents too close an approach to the altar. 

''You must first have a permesso from the Pope, or, at 
least, from a Cardinal," said a passing verger to whom we 
communicated our desire to go in. Discovering, upon 
trial, that the gate was not locked, we felt strongly in- 
clined to make an independent sally, but were withheld 
by a principle to which we endeavored to be uniformly 
true, — namely, — obedience to law, and what the usages of 
the time and place decreed to be order. A priest, belong- 
ing, we guessed from his dress, to a higher order than 
most of those we had encountered in our tour of the build- 
ing, knelt on the low step surrounding the railing, and 
while my companions strolled on, I loitered near the for- 
bidden gate, one eye upon him who prayed at the shrine 
of ''Sancte Paule Apostole." When he arose, I accosted 
him, having had leisure in which to study a diplomatic 
address. I chanced to have in the pocket of my cloak a 
box of Roman pearls and other trinkets I had bought that 
forenoon. Producing this, as a prefatory measure, and 
beginning with the conventional, '■^Pardon, Monsieur!'' I 
informed him in the best French at my command, that I 
was a stranger and an American — facts he must have 
giean'ed before I had dropped three words ; — that, although 
not a Roman Catholic, I desired to lay these trifles upon 
the tomb of St. Paul. Not out of custom or superstition, 
but as I might pick a flower from, or touch, in greeting, 
the grave of a friend. 



256 . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

He had a noble, gentle face and hearkened kindly to my 
petition. 

**I comprehend !" he said, taking the beads from my 
hand, and, beckoning up a sacristan, motioned him to open 
the gate. 

'^ You can enter, Madame ! " he continued, with a cour- 
teous inclination of the head. 

I followed the two ; stood by while they bent the knee 
to the altar-step and made the sign of the cross. The supe- 
rior priest turned to me. 

"You know, do you not, that Timothy is buried here, 
also," touching a tablet upon which was cut one word — 

"TiMOTHEI." 

" I hope so ! " answered I, wistfully. 

Was it wrong to hold lovingly the desire — almost the 
belief — that the '' beloved son " had taken alarm at the 
import and tone of the second epistle from '' Paul the 
Aged," and come long enough before winter to brighten 
his last days ? '' It is possible," students and professors of 
Church History concede to those who crave this rounding 
of a ''finished" life. It seemed almost sure, with Paul's 
name above us and Timothy's under my hand. 

My new friend smiled. '' JVe believe it. Timothy's 
body was brought to Rome after his martyrdom — he out- 
lived his master many years — and interred beside him in 
the Catacomb of St. Lucina." 

*' I know the legend," I said ; '' it is very beautiful." 

" It is customary," the priest went on to say, '' to lay 
chaplets upon the shrine. But you are an American," 
another grave smile. ''Would you like to look into the 
tomb ?" 

He opened a grating in the front of the altar. By 
leaning fonvard, I fancied I saw a dark object in the deep 
recess. 



''PAUL — A PRISONER." 2$/ 

" The sarcophagus is of silver. A cross of gold lies upon 
it. Then, there is an outer case." 

He knelt, reached the hand holding the beads as far 
through the opening as his arm would gO, and arose. 

" They have touched the coffin of St. Paul ! " simply and 
solemnly. 

While they lay over his fingers he crossed the beads, mur- 
mured some rapid words. 

''My blessing will not hurt them, or you !" restoring 
them to me with the gentle seriousness that marked his 
demeanor throughout the little scene. 

I thanked him earnestly. Whether he were sincere, or 
acting a well-conned part, his behavior to me was the per- 
fection of high-toned courtesy. I said that he had done 
me a kindness, and I meant it. 

" It is nothing ! " was the rejoinder. " It is I who am 
grateful for the opportunity to render a stranger, and an 
American, even so slight a service." 

Some of our party made merry over my adventure ; 
affected to see in my appreciation of the increased value 
of my blest baubles, deflection from the path of Protes- 
tantism rectilinear and undefiled. I think all were slightly 
scandalized when, turning in their walk across the nave, 
they saw the tableau within the sacred rail ; myself, 
between two priests, and bending toward the open tomb 
of St. Paul. 

To me it is a pleasing and interesting reminiscence, 
even if the story of Paul's and Timothy's tenancy of the 
crypt be a monkish figment. And this I am loath to 
admit. 




CHAPTER XIX. 

Tasso and Tusculum, 

IHE church and convent of S. Onofrio crown the 
steepest slope of the Janiculan. Our cocchieri 
always insisted, more or less strenuously, that we 
should alight at the bottom of the short Salita di S. Onofrio^ 
and ascend on foot while the debilitated horses followed at 
their ease. Our first drive thither was upon a delicious 
morning in February, when the atmosphere was crystal- 
line to the Sabine Hills. The terrace before the church- 
portico was clean and sunny, the prospect so enchanting, 
that we hung over the parapet guarding the verge of the 
hill, for a long quarter of an hour. Under the Papacy, 
S. Onofrio was barred against women, except upon the 
25th of April, the anniversary of the death of Torquato 
Tasso, for whose sake, and that alone, strangers would care 
to pass the threshold. 

Beyond the tomb of Tasso, and that of the lingual 
prodigy. Cardinal Mezzofanti, the church offers no temp- 
tation to sight-seers. We therefore turned almost imme- 
diately into the cloisters of the now sparsely inhabited 
monastery. The young priests and acolytes are winning 
honest bread by honest labor elsewhere. Gray-bearded 
monks stumble along the corridors, keep up the daily 
masses, and sun themselves among the salad and artichoke 
beds of the garden. 



TASSO AND TUSCULUM. 259 

''Slow to learn !" said Caput, shaking his head before a 
fresco in the side-arcade of the church. 

It represented St. Jerome, gaunt, wild-eyed and dis- 
traught with the sense of his impotence and sinfulness, at 
the moment thus described by him ; — '' How often, when 
alone in the desert with wild beasts and scorpions, half 
dead with fasting and pe7iance^ have I fancied myself a spec- 
tator of the sins of Rome, and of the dances of its young 
women ! " 

Victor Emmanuel had biting reasons of his own for 
knowing what is the sway of the flesh and the devil, 
leaving the world out of the moral sum. Merciful humani- 
tarian as well as wise ruler, he led would-be saints into the 
wholesome air of God's working-day world. 

The passage from the church to the conventual buildings 
is decorated with unlovely scenes from the life of that un- 
lovely hermit, S. Onofrio. His neglected nakedness and 
ostentatious contempt for the virtue very near akin to com- 
monplace godliness, make one wonder the more at the 
sweet cleanliness of the halls and rooms nominally under 
his guardianship. 

"Ecco !" said our guide, opening the door of a large 
chamber. 

Directly opposite, in strong relief against the bare wall, 
stood a man. Dressed in the doublet and hose worn by 
Italian gentlemen two hundred years ago, he leaned 
lightly on the nearest wainscot, with the easy grace of one 
who listens, ready to reply to friend or guest. The beauti- 
ful head was slightly bent, — a half-smile lighted features 
that were else sad. A step into the room, a second's 
thought dispelled the illusion. Some of the company said 
it had never existed for them. For myself, I gladly own 
that I was startled by the life-like expression of figure and 
face. It is a fresco, and critics say, cheap and tawdry, — a 



26o . LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

mere trick, and not good even as a trick. I got used, after 
awhile, to disagreement with the critics, and when a thing 
pleased me, liked it, in my own heart, without their per- 
mission. This fresco helped me believe that this was 
Tasso's room ; that he had trodden this floor, perhaps 
leaned against the wall over there, while he looked from 
that window upon the Rome that had done him tardy jus- 
tice by summoning him to receive in her Capitol the lau- 
reate's crown. 

Wrecked in love and in ambition ; robbed and maligned ; 
deserted by friends and hounded by persecutors ; confined 
for cause as yet unknown, for seven years in a madman's 
cell, he was at fifty-one — uncheered by the blaze of popu- 
lar favor shed upon him at evening-time — bowed in spirit, 
infirm in body. The Coronation was postponed until 
Spring in consideration for his feeble health. The cere- 
mony was to surpass all former literary pageants, and 
preparations for it were in energetic progress when Tasso 
removed, for rest and recuperation, to the Convent of S. 
Onofrio. He had worked hard that winter in spite of 
steadily-declining strength. He would rally his forces 
against the important day that was to declare his life to 
have been triumph, not failure. We recall the bitterer 
address of Wolsey at the door of the convent in which he 
had come to lay his bones, in reading Tasso's exclamation 
to the monks who welcomed him : *'My fathers ! I have 
come to die amongst you ! " When informed by his physi- 
cian that the end was very near, he thanked him for the 
''pleasant news" and blessed Heaven for ''a haven so 
calm after a life so stormy." 

To a friend, he wrote — ''I am come to begin my con- 
versation in Heaven in this elevated place." The Pope 
sent him absolution under his own hand and seal. *' I 
shall be crowned ! " said the dying poet. '' Not with laurel, 



TASSO AND TUSCULUM. 261 

as a poet in the Capitol, but with a better crown of glory- 
in Heaven." 

The monk who watched and prayed with him on the 
night ending with the dawn of April 25, 1595, caught his 
last murmur : — 

*' In mantis tuas^ D amine ! " 

He had instructed his friend, Cardinal Aldobrandini, to 
collect and destroy all his printed works, the mutilation of 
which had nettled him to frenzy, a few years before. 
They were nothing to him now ; the memories of his tur- 
bulent life a dream he would forget *'in this elevated 
place." 

A glass case in this chamber holds a wax cast of his face 
taken after death. It is brown, cracked, dreesome, the 
features greatly changed by sorrow and pain from those 
of a marble bust near by, and very unlike those of the 
frescoed portrait. The head is small and well-formed, the 
forehead high, with cavernous temples. A shriveled lau- 
rel-wreath is bound about them, discolored and brittle as 
the wax. The crucifix used by him in his last illness and 
which was enclasped by his dead hands is also exhibited, 
with his inkstand, a page of MS. and the iron box in which 
he lay buried until the erection of his monument. But 
for the graceful figure upon the wall in the corner by the 
left-hand window, and the view framed by the casements, 
we could not have remembered that life, no less than death, 
had been here ; — still less, that this was, in truth, a Corona- 
tion-room. 

Through the garden a broad alley leads between beds 
of thrifty vegetables to Tasso's oak. From the shattered 
trunk, which has suffered grievously from the winds, shoots 
a single vigorous branch. We picked ivy and grasses from 
the earth about the roots where Tasso sat each day, while 
he could creep so far ; — the city at his feet, the Campagna 



262 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

beyond the city unrolled to the base of the mountains, and 
Heaven beyond the hills. The only immortelle I saw 
growing in Italy, I found so near to Tasso's oak that his 
foot must often have pressed the spot. 

At the left of the oak, and winding along the crest of 
the hill is a terrace bordered by a low, broken wall, bright 
that day, with mid-winter turf and bloom. Rust-brown 
and golden wall-flowers were rooted among the stones ; 
pansies smilingly pushed aside the grass to get a good 
look at the sun; daisies, like happy,' lawless children, ran 
everywhere. 

** This is what I crossed the Atlantic to see and to be ! " 
Caput pronounced, deliberately, throwing himself down 
on the sward, and resting an elbow upon the wall, just 
where the flowers were thickest, the sunshine warmest, the 
prospect fairest. '* You can go home when you like. I 
shall remain here until the antiquated fathers up at the 
house drive me from the premises. I can touch Heaven — 
as the Turks say — with my finger ! " 

While we affected to wait upon his pleasure, we remem- 
bered that a more genial saint than the patron of the con- 
vent — to wit — S. Filippo Neri, was wont to assemble here 
Roman children and teach them to sing and act his ora- 
torios. What a music-gallery ! And what a theme for 
artist's brush or pen were those rehearsals under this sky, 
at this height, with the shadow of Tasso's oak upon the 
al fresco concert-hall ! 

"The view from Tusculum is said to be more beautiful 
than this," observed our head, murmurously, from the 
depths of his Turkish trance. *' We will see it before the 
world is a week older ! " 

Nevertheless, the earth was two months further on in 
her swing around the sun, and that sun had kissed into life 
a thousand blushing flowers, where one had bloomed in 



, TASSO AND TUSCULUM. 263 

February, when we really set out for the site of that vener- 
able town. We had appointed many other seasons for the 
excursion, aod been thwarted in design, crippled in execu- 
tion. Mrs. Blimber's avowal that she could go down to 
the grave in peace could she but once have seen Cicero in 
his villa at Tusculum, was worn into shreds among us. 

When we did meet, by appointment, our friends, the V s 

at the station in time for the eleven o'clock train to Fras- 
cati, we had a story of an inopportune call that had nearly 
been the fortieth obstacle to the fruition of our scheme. 

It was April, but the verdure of early summer was in 
trees and herbage. Nature never sleeps in Italy. At the 
worst, she only lapses into drowsiness on winter nights, 
and, next morning, confesses the breach of decorum with a 
bewitching smile that earns for her abundant pardon. The 
exuberance of her mood on this day was tropical and su- 
perb. The tall grasses of the Campagna were gleaming 
surges before the wind, laden with odors stolen from 
plains of tossing purple spikes — not balls — yet which were 
clover to taste and smell. Red rivulets of poppies twist- 
ed in and out of the corn-fields and splashed up to the 
edge of the railway, and ox-eyed daisies were foamy masses 
upon the scarlet streams. Even in Italy, and in spring- 
tide, the olive is the impersonation of calm melancholy. 
In all the voluptuous glory of this weather, the olive trees 
stood pale, passionless, patient, holding on to their hill- 
sides, not for life's, but for duty's sake, sustaining resolu- 
tion and disregarding gravitation, by casting backward, 
grappling roots above the soil, like anchors played out in 
rough seas. They could not make the landscape sad, but 
they chastened it into milder beauty. Between dark 
clumps of ilex, overtopped by stately stone pines — ruined 
towers and battlements told their tale of days and races 
now no more, as the white walls of modern villas, embo- 



264 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

somed in groves of nectarine and almond, and flowering- 
chestnut trees — like sunset clouds for rosy softness — be- 
spoke present affluence and tranquillity in which to enjoy it. 

In half an hour we were at the Frascati station. A mile 
of steep carriage-drive that granted us, at every turn in 
the ascent, new and delightful view^s, brought us to the 
cathedral. It is very ugly and uninteresting except for 
the circumstance that just within it is the monument dedi- 
cated by Cardinal York to his brother, Charles Edward, 
better known by his sobriquet of " Young Pretender," than 
by the string of Latin titles informing us of his inherited 
rights and claim. Vexatious emptiness though these were, 
the recitation of them appears to have been the pabulum 
of soul and spirit to the exiled Stuarts unto the third gen- 
eration. 

We lunched moderately well — being hungry — at the best 
inn in Frascati, and discarding the donkeys and donkey- 
boys clustering like flies in the cathedral piazza, we bar- 
gained for four ''good horses " to take us up to Tusculum. 

Mrs. V was not well, and remained at the hotel while 

our cavalcade, attended by two guides, wound up the hill. 
The element of the ludicrous, never lacking upon such 
expeditions, came promptly and boldly to the front by 
the time we were fairly mounted, and hung about the 
party until we alighted in the same spot on our return. 

Dr. V stands six feet, four, in low-heeled slippers, and 

to him, as seemed fit, was awarded the tallest steed. Pri- 
ma's w^as a gaunt beast, whose sleepy eyes and depressed 
head bore out the master's asseveration that he was quiet 
as a lamb. Caput's horse was of medium height and 
abounding in capers, a matter of no moment until it was 
discovered that my lamb objected to be mounted, and re- 
fused to be guided by a w^oman. After a due amount of 
prancing and curveting had demonstrated this idiosyncrasy 



TASSO AND TUSCULUM. 265 

to be no mere notion on my part, a general exchange, leav- 
ing out Prima, was effected. I was lifted to the back of the 
lofty creature who had borne Dr. V . Caput demand- 
ed the privilege of subduing the misogynist. To the lot 
of our amiable son of Anak fell a Rosinante, who, as re- 
spectable perhaps in his way as his rider was in his, became, 
by the conjunction of the twain, an absurd hexaped that 
provoked the spectators to roars of laughter, his rider lead- 
ing and exceeding the rest. 

'' The tomb of LucuUus ! " he sobered us by exclaiming, 
pointing to a circular mass of masonry by the roadside. 
'' That is to say, the reputed tomb. We know that he was 
Cicero's neighbor — that they borrowed one another's books 
in person." 

The books that, Cicero tells Atticus, ''gave a soul to his 
house ! " The brief, every-day phrase indicative of the 
neighborliness of the two celebrated Romans made real 
men of them, and the region familiar ground. The road 
lay between oaks, chestnuts, laurels, and thickets of lau- 
restinus, the leaves shining as with fresh varnish — straight 
up the mountain, until it became a shaded lane, paved with 
polygonal blocks of lava. This is, incontestably, the an- 
cient road to Tusculum, discovered and opened within fifty 
years. The banks were a mosaic of wild flowers ; — the 
largest daisies and anemones we had yet seen, cyclamen, 
violets, and scores of others unknown by sight or name to 
us. In response to our cry of delight, both gentlemen 

reined in their horses, and Dr. V alighted to collect 

a bouquet. The tightening of Caput's rein brought his 
horse's ears so near his own, he had to throw his head 
back suddenly to save his face. The animal had a camel's 
neck in length and suppleness, — a mule's in stubborness, 
and put upon, or off, his mettle by the abrupt jerk, he gave 
marvelous illustrations of these qualities. He could waltz 



266 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

upon four legs or upon two ; dance fast or slow ; rear and 
kick at once, or stand like a petrifaction under whip, spur, 
and an enfilading fire of Italian and American expletives ; 
but his neck was ever the feature of the performance. 
Whether he made of it a rail, an inclined iron plane, the 
handle of a jug, or a double bow-knot, it was true to one 
purpose — not to obey rein or rider. 

" The wretched brute has no martingale on ! " cried the 
latter, at length. *' See, here ! you scamp ! Ecco ! Voila ! 
V ! what is the Italian for martingale ? Ask that fel- 
low what he means by giving such a horse to a lady, or to 
any one whose life is of any value, without putting curb 
or martingale upon him ? " 

The doctor, who, by the way, was once described to me 
by a Roman shopkeeper as the "tall American, with the 
long beard, and who speaks Italian so beautifully," opened 
parley, when he could control his risibles, with the owner 
of the " molto biiono " animal. 

" He says he could not put upon him what he does not 
possess," was the epitome of the reply. " That he has but 
three martingales. And there are four horses. Supply 
inadequate to demand, my dear fellow ! He implores the 
signore Americano to be reasonable." 

*' Reasonable ! " The signore swung himself to the 
ground. ''Say to him, with my compliments, that I im- 
plore him to take charge of a horse that is altogether 
worthy, — if that could be — of his master ! I shall walk ! 
He ought to be made to ride ! " 

We begged off the cowering delinquent from this ex- 
treme of retribution. Picking up the bridle flung to him, 
he followed us at a disconsolate and respectful distance. 
Cicero had a fine, peppery temper of his own. Did he 
ever have a fracas with his charioteer in this steep lane, I 
w^onder ? 



TASSO AND TUSCULUM. * 267 

We dismounted at what are supposed to be the ruins of 
his Villa. Some archaeologists give the preference to the 
spot now occupied by the Villa Rufiinella, which we had 
seen on our way up. The best authorities had decided, at 
the date of our excursion to Tusculum, that the orator's 
favorite residence, ^'' ad later a superiora'' of the eminence 
culminating in the Tusculan fortress, stood nearer the city 
than was once thought, and that its remains are the thick 
walls and vaulted doorway we examined in profound be- 
lief in this theory. It is not an extensive nor a very pic- 
turesque remainder, although the buried foundations may 
be traced over a vast area. Against the sunniest wall 
grows an immense ivy-tree, spreading broad arms and 
tenacious fingers over the brick-work. The side adhering 
to the wall is flat, of course. We measured the outer sur- 
face, at the height of five feet from the ground. It was 
thirty-nine inches from side to side. This may almost be 
rated as the diameter, the bark being very slightly pro- 
tuberant. 

For beauty of situation the Villa was without an equal. 
Forsyth says, — " On the acclivity of the hill were scattered 
the villas of Balbus, Brutus, Catullus, Metellus, Crassus, 
Pompey, Caesar, Gabinus, Lucullus, Lentulus and Varro, 
so that Cicero was in the midst of his acquaintances and 
friends." 

"In that place, alone" — wrote Cicero of his Tusculan 
home to his best friend and correspondent — "do I find 
rest and repose from all my troubles and toil." 

In his "Essay upon Old Age," he draws an attractive 
picture of the country-life of a gentleman-farmer at that 
time. I have not room to transcribe it here, faithfully as 
it portrays the real tastes and longings of the ambitious 
lawyer and successful politician. " What need " — and 
there is a sigh for the Tusculan upper hillside in the sen- 



268 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

tence — ''to dwell upon the charm of the green fields, the 
well-ordered shrubberies, the beauty of vineyards and 
olive-groves ? " 

These smile no more about the site of the desolated 
villa. Terraces, slopes and summits are overgrown with 
wild grass. A few goats were feeding upon these at the 
door where little Tullia— the "Tulliola" of the fond 
father — his '•'■ delicia nostra'' — may have frolicked w^hile he 
watched her from the colonnade overlooking Rome, — or 
one of " the seats with niches against the wall adorned 
with pictures ; " — or, still, within sound of her voice, wrote 
in his library to Atticus, that the young lady threatened 
to sue him, (Atticus,) for breach of contract in not having 
sent her a promised gift. 

The paved road, firm velvet ridges of turf rising between 
the blocks, runs beyond the Villa, directly to a small the- 
atre. The upper walls are gone, but the foundations are 
entire, with fifteen rows of seats. It is a semicircular 
hollow in the turfy bank, excavated by Lucien Bonaparte 
while he lived at Villa Ruffinella. We descended half a 
dozen steps and stood upon the stone platform w^here it is 
generally believed Cicero held the famous Tusculan Dis- 
putations. The topics of these familiar dialogues or talks 
were *' Contempt of Death," "Constancy in Suffering," 
and the like. Did he draw consolation from a review of 
his own philosophy, upon that bitter day when, deserted 
by partisans, and chased by his enemies, he withdrew to 
his beloved '' Tusculaneum " and from these heights looked 
down upon the city whose pride he had been ? — 

** Rerunty pule her rima Roma ! '* 

Waiting, doubting, dreading, he at length received the 
news that a price had been set upon his head, fled in a 



TASSO AND TUSCULUM. 269 

blind, strange panic ; returned upon his steps ; again took 
flight, doubled a second time upon the track, and sat 
down, stunned and desperate, to await the death-blow. 

Instead of the myrtle-tree, thorn-bushes and brambles 
grow rankly in 

" The white streets of Tusculum." 

The reservoir that fed the aqueducts; the ruins of 
Forum and Theatre ; piles of nameless stones breaking 
through uncultivated moors; on the side nearest Rome, 
mossy pillars of the old gateway ; outside of this, a stone 
drinking-trough set there in the days of the Consulate, 
and through which still runs a stream of pure cold water, 
— this is what is left of the town founded by the son of 
Circe and Ulysses ; erst the stanch ally of Rome, and the 
queen-city of Latium up to the battle of Lake Regillus. 
The best view of the encompassing country is to be had a 
little beyond the gateway. From this point is visible the 
natural basin, shut in by wooded hills, which contains 
Lake Regillus, now a stagnant pond, quite dry in summer. 
Under our feet were the stones from which the hoofs of 
Mamilius' dark-gray charger struck fire on the day of 
battle. 

Repeating the rhyme, we looked around to trace the 
route by which 

" He rushed through the gate of Tusculum ; 
He rushed up the long white street ; 
He rushed by tower and temple. 
And paused not from his race 
'Till he stood before his master's door 
In the stately market-place." 

"Poetry — not history ■" objected one. 

*' Better than statistical facts ! " said another. 



270 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Glancing in the direction of Rome, we were the wit- 
nesses of an extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon. The 
city, a dozen miles away, was lifted from the plain and 
floating upon a low-lying band of radiant mist. The dome 
of St. Peter's actually appeared to sway and tremble as a 
balloon strains at its cords. The roofs were silver ; the 
pinnacles aerial towers. Thus the background, while 
between it and our mountain, the Campagna was a gulf 
black as death with the shadow of a thundercloud that had 
come we know not from what quarter. It was not there 
five minutes ago. We had barely time to exclaim over the 
marvel of contrasted light and gloom, when the cloud 
dropped like monstrous bat-wings upon the valley, flew 
faster than did ever bird of day or night toward us. There 
was not a roof in Tusculum. The guides brought up the 
horses in haste, and three of us were in the saddle by the 
time the first big drops dashed in our faces. 

^' Ride ! " ejaculated the fourth, in response to the suppli- 
cating pantomime of the leader of the unmartingaled beast. 
''On that\X\\\\^ !" 

Tusculum rain had not extinguished his sense of injury, 
and this was insult. There was but one umbrella amongst 
us, and this was forced upon me. Caput threw my bridle 
over his arm and walked at my tall horse's head, calmly 

regardless of the drenching storm. Dr. V and his 

four-footed adjunct jogged placidly at the head of the line. 
Next rode Prima, humming softly to herself, w^hile cascades 
poured from her hat-brim upon her shoulders, and her 
soaked dress distilled green tears upon the sides of her 
white horse. We followed, I very high, and selfishly dry. 
The guides, to whose outer men the plentiful washing was 
an improvement, straggled along in the rear, leading the 
recalcitrant horse. It was a forlorn-looking, but perfectly 
good-humored procession. There was little danger of 



TASSO AND TUSCULUM. 2/1 

taking cold from summer rain in this warm air. However 
this might be, to fret would be childish, to rebel foolishly 
useless. Caput uttered the only protest against the pro- 
ceedings of the day, and that not until we left our horses 
in the piazza in front of the cathedral, and waited in the 
sunshine succeeding the shower, while the guides were 
paid. 

''I don't mind the walk up and down the mountain," 
beating the wet from his hat, and wiping the drops from 
his face. '^ Nor the wetting very much, although my boots 
are ruined. I do grudge giving ten francs for the privilege 
of seeing that brigand lead his villanous horse three 
miles ! " 

But he paid the bill. 




CHAPTER XX. 
From Pompeii to Lake Avernus, 

**£ were at Naples and Pompeii in the winter, and 
again in the spring. The Romans aver that most 
of the foreigners who die in their city with fever, 
contract the disease in Naples. We credited this so far 
that we preferred to make short visits to the latter place, 
and, while there, passed much time in the open air. It is 
our conviction, moreover, that little is to be apprehended 
from malaria in the w^orst-drained city of Italy if visitors 
will stipulate invariably for bed-room and parlor fires. 
The climate is deceiftul, if not so desperately wicked as 
many believe. Extremes of heat and cold are alike to be 
avoided, and the endeavor to do this involves care and 
expense. It must be remembered that in America we have 
no such winter suns as those that keep alive the heart of 
the earth in Southern Europe. Nor are our houses stone 
grottoes, constructed with express reference to the exclu- 
sion of the fierce heats of eight months of the year. The 
natives aifect to despise fires in their houses except a char- 
coal-blast in the kitchen while meals are cooking, and a 
brazier, or scaldino of coals in the portiere's lodge, in very 
cold weather. Our Roman visitors evidently regarded the 
undying wood-fire in our salle as an extravagant caprice. 
It was pretty, they admitted. It pleased their aesthetic 
taste, and they never failed to praise it, in taking their 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 2/3 

seats as far as possible from it. Indoor life to them is a 
matter of secondary importance in comparison with driving, 
walking and visiting. The ladies have few domestic duties, 
or such intellectual pursuits as would tempt them to sit 
for hours together at home. Cookery, sewing and house- 
work are done by hirelings, who are plentiful, content with 
low wages and who live upon salads, black bread and sour 
wine, never expecting even savory crumbs left by their 
employers. Americans are apt to construe literally the 
injunction to live in Rome as the Romans do, leaving out 
of view the grave consideration that they are not, also, 
born and bred Italians. They have cold feet incessantly, 
even at night, they will tell you ; are chilled to the marrow 
by stone walls and floors ; the linen sheets are so many 
snow-drifts ; the air of their apartments is that of ice- 
vaults upon their incoming from outdoor excursions. 

" Yet, it is too absurd to have fires in this lovely 
weather ! Who would think of such a thing at home on a 
June day ? " 

Forgetting that '' at home " the June air would make its 
way to the inner chambers and modify the temperature of 
the very cellars. One more sanitary hint, and I leave 
practical suggestions for the present. Wear thick flannels 
and woolen stockings in the Italian winter, and keep at 
hand light shawls or sacques that may be cast about the 
shoulders indoors, in laying aside the wrappings you have 
w^orn in the street. Always recollect that the danger of 
taking cold is greatest in coming in, not in going out. 

The winter weather in Naples was so fine as to banish 
our fears of illness. We had heard that sea-storms a week 
long were not uncommon at that season, and to make sure 
of Pompeii, drove out thither, the day after our arrival. 
The entrance to the long-entombed city provoked and 
amused us. The Hotel Diomede is to the eye a second- 



274 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

class lager-bier saloon, the name conspicuous above the 
entrance. A smart and dirty waiter ran down the steps, 
opened the carriage-door, and ushered us into the restau- 
rant, where the proprietor received us bowingly, and press- 
ed upon us the hospitalities of the establishment. 

Crest-fallen at the news that we had lunched, he opined, 
notwithstanding, that we would purchase something in the 
Museum, and passed us on to the custodian of the inner 
room. This was stocked with trinkets, vases, manufac- 
tured antiquities, etc., prepared to meet the wants of those 
travellers to whom a cheap imitation is better than a costly 
original ; people who wear lava brooches and bracelets, 
crowd their mantels with mock Parian images and talk of 
''^y^talians" and '* Pompey-^j^." We were not to be 
stayed, having seen the turf and sky beyond the back-door. 

A flight of steps took us up to a high terrace where w^as 
the ticket-office. A revolving bar passed us through be- 
tween two guards. A guide in the same uniform was in- 
troduced to us. 

'* No. 27 will show you whatever you wish to see," said 
an officer. 

No. 27 touched his cap, and belonged to us henceforth. 

No ashes, or scoria heaps yet ! No ruins, — no lava ! 
For all we could perceive — no Pompeii. Only a pleasant 
walk between high turfed banks and portulacca-beds, with 
Vesuvius, still and majestic, a mile or two aw^ay, a plume 
of white vapor curling slowly above the cone. We trav- 
ersed a short, covered corridor, and began the ascent of 
a paved alley — dead walls on each side. 

''^ Po7'ta dell a Marina ! Via ddla Marina ! " said our guide, 
then, translating into French the information that we had 
entered Pompeii by the Gate and the Street of the Sca- 
the highway of city-traffic before the imprisoned demons 
of the mountain broke bounds. 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 275 

The streets are all alleys, like this first, laid with heavy- 
polygonal blocks of tufa, and grooved — most deeply and 
sharply at the corners — by wheels. The ruts of Glaucus* 
chariot-wheels ! But what were the dimensions of the 
bronze vehicle '' of the most fastidious and graceful fash- 
ion," drawn by two horses of Parthian breed that ''glided 
rapidly" by others of the same build between these blocks 
of buildings ? Or was there a Pompeian law requiring 
those who went in a certain direction to proceed by speci- 
fied streets? 

We were not prepared for the difficulty of ascertaining 
which was the West End of the town which Glaucus tells 
Clodius, '' had the brilliancy of luxury without the lassi- 
tude of its pomp." Nearly every house has a shop at- 
tached to it. '■'■ Stalls " we would style them, in which the 
brick counter, formerly covered with marble, takes up at 
least half the room. The shops were closed at night by 
wooden doors or shutters filling up the entire width of the 
front. These, having decayed or burned away, the visitor 
steps from the street into the cell walled in on three sides, 
and roofless. The entrance to the dwelling had no con- 
nection whatever with the stall built on to it. If this was 
the proprietor's abode, he, in genuine Epicurean fashion, 
"sank the shop " out of work-hours. It is supposed that 
the w^ealthier citizens rented their street-fronts at a high 
rate, to tradespeople, without the consequent depreciation 
of gentility that would befall a member of New York 
uppertendom, were he to " live over" or back of a ''store." 
Another surprise was the band-box tenements in which 
people who made more account of ease and beauty than of 
their own immortality, contrived to live. The vestibule, 
running beside the shop-wall from the street into the 
Liliputian mansion, is scarcely five feet wide in some of 
the best houses. The court-yard behind is not larger than 



2/6 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

a square table-cloth ; the fountain-basin in the middle re- 
sembles a big punch-bowl. Beyond this, separated now 
by a marble or paved walk, formerly, also, by a curtain 
that could be raised or lowered, is a larger court. This 
part of the building was devoted to such public dealings 
as the owner might have with the outer world. Here he 
received office-seekers, beggars and book-agents ; paid bills 
and gave orders. The family court — the peristylium-^w^s 
still further back, and usually raised by the height of a 
marble step above the second. This was enclosed by pil- 
lars, painted red, a quarter of the way up, — the rest white. 
Another curtain shut in this sanctum from the general 
gaze. In the middle of the court was a flower-bed, its 
centre a fountain. About these three courts were built 
dining-room, kitchen, dressing- and bed-rooms and other 
family apartments. The upper stories were of wood and 
usually occupied as servants' dormitories. These have 
slowly mouldered away, having been, some think, calcined 
by the hot ashes. There are, of course, variations upon 
this plan, and some mansions of respectable size without 
the commercial attachment, but the above may serve as an 
outline draught of the typical Pompeian dwelling, even of 
the richer classes. 

'' Have you read the * Last Days of Pompeii ? ' " the guide 
amazed us by saying when we had wandered in his wake 
for an hour. 

We had a copy with us and showed it to him. He be- 
lieved it to be an Italian work, it presently appeared, 
having read it in that language, sans preface, we suppose, 
for he also accepted it as sober, veracious history. We 
allowed ourselves to share his delusion in beholding the 
plot of ground — a sheet would have covered it — in which 
Nydia tended the flowers of Glaucus ; the shrine of the 
Penates at the back of the peristyle ; the triclinum — or 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 2// 

banqueting-room in which the young Greek supped with 
Lepidus, Pansa, Sallust, Clodius and his umbra ; where the 
slave-carver "performed that office upon the Ambracian 
kid to the sound of music, his knife keeping time, begin- 
ning with a low tenor, and accomplishing the arduous feat 
amidst a magnificent diapason." 

The apartment is, like the others, small but well-propor- 
tioned, and the frescoes are still quite distinct. We al- 
lotted places to the host and his several guests about an 
imaginary table, the guide smiling at our animated interest 
without a misgiving that the dramatis personcE were dream- 
children of Signore Bulwer's brain. I dare not attempt 
his Italianization of the noble author's title. Workmen 
were repairing the step by which we left the inner court 
for the tablium^ or master's office. An accident had 
shivered the marble sheathing and several bits were cast 
aside as worthless. With the guide's sanction, I pocketed 
them, and afterward had them made into dainty little 
salvers, purely clear as the finest Parian, or the enamored 
Glaucus' ideal of lone — " that nymph-like beauty which for 
months had shone down upon the waters of his memory." 

The silence that has its home in the deserted city is 
something to dream of, — not describe. The town is swept 
and clean — doubtless cleaner than when the gargoyles on 
the fountains at every other corner gushed with fresh w^ater. 
That the Pompeians were a thirsty race, water- as well 
as wine-bibbers, — is distinctly proved by the hollows worn 
in the stone sides of these enclosed hydrants, just where a 
man would rest his hand and lean his whole weight to 
swing his body around in order to bring his lips in contact 
with the stream from the carved spout. No. 27 showed us 
how it was done and by the simple action made stillness 
and solitude more profound. Thousands of swarthy hands 
— the callous palms of laborer and peasant, — must have 



2/8 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

rested thus for hundreds of years to produce such abrasion 
of the solid stone. And here were he and five pale-faced 
strangers, — the only living things in sight in a street of 
yawning shop-fronts, built in compact blocks ; to the right 
a grove of columns and expanse of tessellated flooring — 
the Temple of Justice, to which none now resorted, to 
which none would ever come again for redress or penalty, 
while Time endures. Wherever the eye fell were temples 
of deities whose names live only in mythology and in song, 
the shrines and fanes of a dead Religion. This was the 
strangest sight of all ; — in this professedly Christian land, 
temples and altars with the traces of slain and bloodless 
sacrifices that had smoked upon them, to Mercury and 
Jupiter and Venus. There was the temple of Isis — whose 
statue we saw, subsequently, in the Neapolitan Museum, 
— with the chamber where the priests held their foul or- 
gies, and the secret passage by which they reached the 
speaking-tube concealed in the body of the goddess; and 
the room in which Calenus and Burbo were found. An 
earthquake may have overthrown upper chambers and 
toppled down images but yesterday. Yet it is a city in 
w^iich there is not the sign of a cross, or other token that 
Christ was born and died ; whose last inhabitants and wor- 
shippers ate, drank, married and were given in marriage 
in the name of Juno, while He walked the earth. 

I have said that Pompeii is a band-box edition that looks 
like a caricature of a town in which men once lived and 
traded and reveled. The bed-rooms in the houses of 
Glaucus, Sallust, Pansa and even in Diomed's Villa, are 
no larger than the v.'ardrobe closet of a Philadelphia me- 
chanic's wnfc. A brick projection fills up one side. On' 
this the bed was laid. In some there are no windows ; in 
others were slits to admit air, but through w^hich, owing 
to the thickness of the walls and the contiguity of other 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 2/9 

buildings, little light could have entered. The positive 
assertion of guide-books that window-glass was unknown 
to the.Pompeians is contradicted by the recent excavation 
of a house in which a fragment of a pane still adheres to 
one of these apertures. We saw it and can testify that it 
was a bit of indubitable glass, set firmly in its casing. 
How Julia and lone contrived to light their dressing- 
rooms sufficiently to make such toilettes as we see in an- 
cient paintings, baffles our invention when we look at the 
glimmering loop-holes and the tiny lamps that held but a 
few thimblefuls of perfumed oil. Bulwer calls the cubicida 
and boudoirs ''petty pigeon-holes," but alleges that these 
darkened chambers were "the effect of the most elaborate 
study " — that '' they sought coolness and shade." We are 
dubious, in reading further of the fair Julia's toilette- 
appointments, that her "eye, accustomed to a certain 
darkness, was sufficiently acute to perceive exactly what 
colors were the most becoming — what shade of the deli- 
cate rouge gave the brightest beam to her dark glance," 
etc. In one house of the better — i. e. — larger sort — is a 
really cozy boudoir, almost big enough to accommodate 
two people, a dressing-table and a chair. The floor is in 
mosaic, wrought, as was the Pompeian fashion, of bits of 
marble, black and white, less than half-an-inch square, set 
with cement. The central design is a pretty conceit of 
three doves, rifling a jewel-casket of ropes of pearls. This 
work, like the image of the bear in the house to which it 
has given its name, is covered with coarse sand to protect 
it from the weather. "The fierce dog painted" — in 
mosaic — " on the threshold " of Glaucus' house, has been 
removed, with the immense " Battle of Darius and Alex- 
ander," to the Naples museum. 

The variety and affluence of decoration in these doll- 
houses is bewildering to the Occidental of this century. 



280 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Every inch of wall and floor was crowded with pictures in 
fresco and mosaic ; statues in bronze and marble adorned 
recess and court, and if the pearl-ropes perished with her 
who wore them, there are enough cameos and intaglios of 
rarest design and cutting ; chains, bracelets, tiaras, fmger 
and earrings and necklaces, in the Neapolitan Museum, 
to indicate what were the other riches of the despoiled 
casket. 

I wish I could talk for awhile about this Museum, so 
unlike any other in the world. Of its statuary, vases and 
paintings ; of the furniture, so odd and yet so beautiful, 
taken from, the unroofed dwellings ; of the contents of 
baker's, grocer's, fruiterer's, artist's, jeweller's and drug- 
gist's shops ; of the variety of household implements that 
were familiar to us through others of like pattern upon 
the shelves of our own pantries and kitchens. Of patty- 
pans , fluted cake-moulds with funnels in the middle ; 
of sugar-tongs ; ice-pitchers and coffee-urns ; of chafing- 
dishes, colanders and tea-strainers ; sugar-scoops and flour- 
sifters. Of just such oval ''gem "-pans, fastened together 
by the dozen, as I had pleased myself by buying the year 
before — as ''quite a new idea." When I finally came upon 
a sheet-iron vessel, identical in size and form with those 
that await the scavenger upon Fifth Avenue sidewalks ; 
beheld the dent made by the kick of the Pompeian street- 
boy, the rim scorched by red-hot ashes " heaved " into it 
by the scullion whose untidiness and irresponsibility fore- 
shadowed the nineteenth-century "help" — I sank upon 
the edge of a dismantled couch that may have belonged 
to the Widow Fulvia, profound respect for the wisdom of 
the Preacher filling my soul and welling up to my tongue ! 

" Is there anything of which it may be said, ' See ! this 
is new ?' It hath been already of old time which was be- 
fore us." 



FROM POMPEH TO LAKE AVERNUS. 28 1 

I did not see clothes-wringer, vertical broiler, or Dover 
egg-beater, but I make no doubt they were there, tucked 
away in corners I had not time and strength to explore, 
behind a sewing-machine and telephone-apparatus. 

We have not — as yet — reproduced in America the so- 
termed nearly extinct volcano of Solfatara. It is near the 
road from Naples to Baiae. 

I am tempted to lay down my pen in sheer discouragement 
at the thought of what we saw in that drive of twelve hours, 
and how little space I ought, in consistency with the plan of 
this work, to devote to it. Baia was the Newport of Ne- 
apolis and other cities of Southern Italy, under the con- 
suls and emperors. Many rich Romans had summer-seats 
there, and it had, likewise, a national reputation as the 
abode of philosophers and authors. 

" I grant the charms of Baiae," Bulwer puts into Glau- 
cus' mouth. '' But I love not the pedants who resort 
there, and who seem to weigh out their pleasures by the 
drachm." 

The route thither lies through, or above the grotto of 
Posilipo, a tunnel built, some assert, by order of Nero — 
the only commendable deed recorded of him. On the 
principle, " To him that hath shall be given," others 
choose to ascribe the work to Augustus. It is certain that 
the grotto existed in Nero's time, as his contemporaries 
mention its gloom and straitness. The tomb of Virgil 
is hidden among the vineyards on the hill to the left as 
one leaves the tunnel, going from Naples. The tomb be- 
side which Petrarch planted a laurel ! One of its remote 
successors still flourishes — somewhat — at the door of the 
structure which belongs to the class of Columbaria. 
A good-sized chamber has three windows and a concave 
ceiling. Around the walls are pigeon-holes for cinerary 
urns. There was a larger cavity between this room and a 



282 "LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

rear wall, in which tradition insists Virgil was interred in 
compliance with his often-expressed desire. Antiquarians 
and historians have squabbled over the spot until plain 
people, with straightforward ways of thought, question if 
Virgil ever lived at Posilipo, or elsewhere than in the im- 
agination of his countrymen. It is recorded that an urn, 
sealing up his ashes, was here about the middle of the 
fourteenth century, and that, running around the lip, was 
the epitaph known to every classic smatterer, beginning — 

*' Mantua me genuit^ Calabri rapuerej^^ 

Neither urn nor epitaph remains. A later inscription com- 
mences, " Qui cineres ? " Most visitors '' give it up." But 
Petrarch was here once, and King Robert of Sicily, who 
helped Laura's lover plant the laurel. And Virgil — or his 
ashes — may have been. We generally gave the departed 
the benefit of the doubt in such circumstances. 

A mile aside from the Baiae road is the Grotto del Cane, 
distinguished for dogs and mephitic vapors, which, as 
Henry Bergh's country-people, we declined to enter. 

Pozzuoli — Puteoli, when Paul landed there, after his 
shipwreck — is a dirty, sleepy little town, in general com- 
plexion so dingy, and in expression so down-hearted, the 
visitor is inclined to suspect that its self-disgust had some- 
thing to do with the gradual sinking of its foundations for 
the last three hundred years. The steps by w^hich St. Paul 
gained the pier are dimly visible under the waters lapping 
lazily above them. Nothing seems alive but the breeze, 
fragrant of sea-brine, and shaking the blue surface of the 
bay into wavering lines and bars of shaded green, purple, 
and silver, that were worth seeing if Puteoli was not. 

We alighted at the Temple of Serapis, restored by Marcus 
Aurelius and Septimus Severus. The site has shared the 
fate of Pozzuoli, having been lowered by a succession of 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 283 

volcanic shocks a dozen feet below its former level. The 
Egyptian deity was magnificently enthroned before the 
decline of paganism, and this sea-side country, upon a 
pedestal in a circular temple, enclosed by a portico of 
Corinthian columns — African marble — sixteen in number. 
The pillars have been removed to the royal palace at Ca- 
serta, and the salt ooze lies, sullen and green, over their 
bases. The quadrangle of the temple had once its guard 
of forty-eight granite columns, and a porch supported by 
six of marble, three of which are left standing. It is a 
mournful ruin, the water lying deep in the sunken centre 
and in pools over the highest part of the uneven pavement, 
and is not made cheerful by the incongruous addition of 
bath-houses on one side. Salt springs, some of them hot, 
broke through the crust at the latest eruption — that which 
threw up Monte Nuovo in 1538. 

Cicero had a villa on this coast — the '' Puteolaneum," 
beloved only less than Tusculaneum. It was built upon 
rising ground, now occupied by a vineyard and orchard, 
but commanding a beautiful view of sea and shore. Here, 
Hadrian was buried after his decease at Baiae, a.d. 138, and 
rested until the construction of his Roman mausoleum. 

Passing the amphitheatre of Pozzuoli, crumbled down 
to the seats, in the arena of which Nero fought in person, 
and Diocletian fed wild beasts with Christian martyrs by 
the hundred ; by the chapel that commemorates the death 
of Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, we were in a 
steep road full of rough stones — a country lane where 
horses could hardly hold their footing. Here Ernesto, the 
useful, who was, at once, coachman and guide, informed 
us regretfully, that we must walk to the gate of Solfatara. 
Moreover, with augmented regret — that, although he had, 
up to this point, been able to protect us from the sallies of 
other ciceroni^ at, at least, five places where Baedeker paren- 



284 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

thesizes — ('* Guide — i franc for each pers.") — he dared not 
push righteous audacity too far. Tiie tempers of the Sol- 
fatara men were uncertain and hot, like their volcano — 
(nearly extinct). 

'^ I vecl stay 'ere veez de 'orses ! " subjoined Ernesto, 
who means to go to America in eight or ten years' time, to 
seek a coachman's place, and practises English diligently 
to that end. '' You veel meet at de gate von man, verra 
ceevil, who veel zhow you all ! " 

The civil man awaited us at the top of the short, sharp 
climb ; undid the gate of the enclosure, and called our 
attention to the stucco manufactory on the inside of the 
high fence. In his esteem, it outranked the subterranean 
works whose bellowing and puffing filled our ears. The 
earth used for this stucco is a pink pumice or clay, pleas- 
ing to the eye and very plastic. The plain is composed 
entirely of it. Men were digging and donkey-carts trans- 
porting it to a long shed by the gate, where a huge wheel 
ground it into paste. Tumuli of the same, natural and 
artificial, were scattered over the area, which is an oblong 
basin among chalky hills. At brief intervals, smoke 
ascended slowly from cracks in the arid earth which was 
hot to the touch. A man stood near the volcano (nearly 
extinct) ready to hurl a big stone upon the ground and 
awaken hollow echoes that rumbled away until lost in tlie 
sea on one hand, among the volcanic hills on the other. 

If Solfatara were in her usual mood that day, her 
reputed half-death is an alarmingly energetic condition. 
Bunyan saw the place in his dreams twice : 

'* About the midst of the valley. I perceived the mouth 
of hell to be. Ever and anon the flame and smoke would 
come out in abundance, with sparks and hideous noises. 
The flames would be reaching towards him ; also, he heard 
doleful noises and rushings to and fro." 



FROM rOMrEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 285 

Again : '' There was a door in the side of a hill. With- 
in, it was very dark and smoky. They also thought that 
they heard there a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry as 
of some tormented, and that they smelt the scent of 
brimstone. The shepherds told them — ' This is a by-way to 
hell.'" 

So said our very civil man. 

'* What makes the noise down there ? " I asked, loudly, to 
be heard above the roaring and groaning. 

"The fire, Madame!" 

** But who keeps up the fires ? " 

'' The devil, Madame, without question. That is his 
home." 

We listened. The sound, when we were somewhat used 
to it, had a diabolical rhythm, as of the rise and fall of a 
thousand pistons, propelled by a head of steam that, with- 
out this safety-valve, would rend the solid globe asunder. 
It was angry, threatening, fiendish. The deep crevice was 
faced with bright crystals of sulphur that glowed like gems 
between the bursts of smoke. A man broke off some with 
a long pole, and dragged them out to cool until we could 
handle them. The ground is saturated with sulphurous 
gases, and the lips of the numerous fissures encrusted with 
sulphites and alum. The idea of the conscious malignity 
of the volcano was sustained by the warning of two of the 
men standing near to a gentleman who had lighted a 
cigar. 

'' No ! no ! the signore must not bring that here. She 
will not allow it. Ecco ! " as a volume of stifling vapor 
gushed out in our direction. *' It comes to you, you 
see ! " 

*' Government monopoly ! No interference tolerated," 
said Caput, as the offender retreated. 

** It is always so ! She does not like cigars, nor so much 



286 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT TATIIS. 

as a match," was all the solution we could get from the 
men of the plienomencjn. "She will smoke. Nobody 
else must." 

Fifty yards to the right of the nearly extinct crater is a 
•fountain of hot mud in a little hollow. An ugly, restless 
thing, that shivers and heaves continually, and, every few 
moments, spouts like a whale, or an uneasy villain whose 
conscience periodically betrays him into a visible casting 
up of mire and dirt. The mud is a greasy black compound 
of unpleasant ingredients, beginning with brimstone, 
and, to test the heat, our civil man offered to boil eggs 
in it. 

" Suppose one were to fall in ? " queried I, eying the 
chaldron in expectation of the next upward rush. 

*'Ah, Madame! he would be boiled also. Unless he 
should go too soon, all the way down,'' pointing omi- 
nously. 

The horrible stuff trembled, surged in the middle as if 
a g(jblin-head were rising — bubbled, and sank with a groan. 
The imp would try it again presently, perhaps emerge to 
sight. I continued to gaze. 

** Madame ! " said a dt;prccating voice. 

My friends had moved away. The guide, in the act of 
following, had glanced back, and, seeing me motionless 
beside the mammoth egg-boiler, recalling my question, 
descried suicidal intent in my eye and mien, and rushed 
back to avert a contretemps that might hurt his reputation as 
a safe conductor and civil man. 

"The friends of Madame await her," he said, insinuat- 
ingly. '' Nor is it good for the lungs of Madame to inhale 
the gas from the pool," affecting to cough. *' The pool is 
not handsome. In effect, it is a devil of a place ! Will not 
Madame have the goodness to walk on ? There are other 
things to see, very interesting ! " 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 28/ 

I laughed, frightening him still more, I fear, for he kept 
near me all the time we were in the grounds, and whispered 
significantly to the gate-keeper as I passed oat. Haw- 
thorne doubts if his Zenobia would have drowned herself 
had she foreseen how disfigured a thing would be dragged 
up by the grappling-hook. Similar knowledge of feminine 
nature would have corrected our civil man's suspicion of 
me. Felo de se in a boiling mud-hole would not tempt 
the maddest maniac who had, ever in her life, cared to look 
in her mirror. 

Monte Nuovo is a really dead, if not gone, volcano, a 
mile and a half to the west of Pozzuoli. It came up in a 
night in 1538 — a conical hill of considerable height — a 
conglomerate of lava, trachyte, pumice and ashes, now 
covered with shrubs and trees. The earthquake that 
created it, lowered the coast and cut off Lake Lacrinus 
from the sea. In mythological days, Hercules built a 
breakwater here that he might drive the bulls of Geryon 
from the neighboring marshes. This sank at the Monte 
Nuovo rising, but can be seen when the water is calm, 
together with ruined piers and masses of masonry. A 
road branches off here from the Baiae thoroughfare to 
Lake Avernus. 

Leaving the carriage on the shore of the latter, we went 
on foot to the Grotto of the Sibyl. It is a dark, damp 
opening in the hill on the south side of the lake. Rank 
vines festoon and evergreen thickets overshadow the 
mouth. Five or six fellows, with unshorn hair and beards, 
and in sheepskin coats and hats, clamored for permission 
to pilot us through the long passage — the fabled entrance 
of hell — into the central hall which lies midway between 
Lakes Avernus and Lacrinus. 

*' Should not be attempted by ladies ! " cried Miss M • 

from her open Baedeker. 



288 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

One and all, we raised remonstrative voices against the 
resolution of our escort to penetrate the recess. Not see 
it when Homer had sung of it and Virgil depicted the 
descent of ^Eneas by this very route to the infernal regions 1 
This was the protest as vehement as our entreaties. One 
might draw inferences the reverse of complimentary to 
himself from our alarm. Of what should he be afraid ? 

Had he heard how our friend, Mr. H , after being 

carried in the guide's arms through the shallow pool cov- 
ering the grotto-floor, had been set down on the other side 
and forced to pay ten francs before the wretch would bring 
him back ? 

Yes ! he had had the tale from the victim's lips. 

"And should I not appear within the hour, send Ernesto 
in to see what has become of me. Two honest men are a 
match for six such cutthroats as these. I must own, can- 
didly, that I never beheld worse countenances and toi- 
lettes. If they won't bring me back, I can wade through 
twelve inches of water. Now, my fine fellows — are you 
ready ? " 

They had lighted their candles, strapped their breeches 
above their knees and looked like utterly disreputable 
butchers, prepared for the shambles. 

We were ill-at-ease about the adventure, but, dissembling 
this for the sake of appearances, before the brace of des- 
peradoes who had remained outside, — it would seem to 
watch us— strolled to the edge of the water and sat down 
in the shade. The lake is a cup, two hundred feet in 
depth, less than two miles in circumference, with a rich 
setting of wooded hills. It was joined to Lacrinus in the 
reign of Augustus by canals, and Roman fleets lay here in 
a sheltered harbor. Monte Nuovo cut off this communi- 
cation, traces of which can be seen in both lakes. At the 
upper end of Avernus are the fine ruins of a Temple of 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 289 

Apollo. We knew the ancient stories of noxious exhala- 
tions that killed birds while flying over it, and of other 
manifest horrors of the location ; of gullies, infested by 
Cimmerian shades ; of the Styx, draining its slow waters 
in their sevenfold circuit of hell, by an underground 
current from the bottom of this reservoir ; of the ghostly 
boatman, the splash of whose oars could be heard in the 
breathless solitude of these accursed shores. Upon the 
hillsides, in the noisome depths of forests polluted by the 
effluvia of the waters, smoked sacrifices to Hecate. 

We saw a placid sheet, mirroring the skies as purely as 
do Como and Windermere. The ravines were cloaked by 
chestnuts and laurels, and the hills upon the thither side 
were clothed with vineyards. A lonely place it is, with a 
brooding hush upon it that was not wholly imaginary. 
It is assuredly not unlovely, nor in the slightest degree 
forbidding. The only uncanny object we found was a vine 
at the entrance of the grotto. It had a twisting, tough 
stem, and leaves in shape somewhat resembling the ivy, 
although larger and more succulent, each marked in white 
with the distinct impression of a serpent. Upon no two 
was the image exactly the same in form or position, but 
the snake was there in all, partly coiled, partly trailing 
over the dark -green siirface, clearly visible even to thg 
scales, the head and, in some, the forked tongue. We re- 
membered the pampered viper of the witch of Vesuvius, 
and wondered if the Sibylline spell had perpetuated in the 
leaving of this vine, the image of a favorite familiar, or 
cursed a hated plant with this brand. We gathered and 
pressed a handful of the mystic leaves from which the 
sinuous lines faded with the verdure into a dull brown, 
after some weeks. 

The pair of cutthroats, removed to a barely respectful 
distance, whispered together as we examined our floral 
13 



290 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

gains, staring at us from under black eyebrows. Tradi- 
tions, known to the peasants, may have divulged the secret 
of the odd veining. More likely — our neighbors were ob- 
jurgating Victor Emmanuel and his obedient soldiery for 
spoiling the honest trade of brigandage, and reminding one 
another how their honored ancestors would have fleeced 
these bold forestieri. Brigandage was a hereditary posses- 
sion in those fair old times ; held in high esteem by those 
who lived thereby, and, it was murmured, so gently rebuked 
by the Government that it throve, not withered under the 
paternal frown. It was openly asserted and generally be- 
lieved that Cardinal Antonelli came of such thievish and 
murderous stock, although he died the richest man — save 
one — in Rome. The declension in Government morals 
on this head may have had much to do with Caput's tri- 
umphant egress from the cave before the expiration of 
half the period he had named. 

He reported the interior to consist of two narrow pas- 
sages, ventilated from above, and two chambers hewn in 
the rock. Through the larger of these lay the entrance 
to the lower regions. No trace remains of the route. 
Probably it was closed by earthquakes as useless, so many 
other avenues to the same locality having been discovered, 
^he smaller room — the Sibyl's Bath — is floored with mosaic 
and flooded to the depth of a foot with tepid water, welling 
up in an adjacent nook. The walls are smoke-blackened, 
the air is close, the ante-chamber to Hades less imposing 
and more comfortless than when Ulysses passed this way, 
and Dido's perfidious lover was led by the Sibyl through 
corridor and hall to the shadier realms underneath. 

We stopped at a public house upon the Lucrine Lake, 
for lunch, and were served with Falernian wine of really 
excellent flavor, and small yellow oysters, tasting so 
strongly of copper as to be uneatable by us. People get 



FROM POMPEII TO LAKE AVERNUS. 291 

to liking them after many attempts, we were informed by 
Roman epicures. One American gourmand, who had 
lived ten years in Italy, was so far denaturalized as to pro- 
test that our ''natives" are gross in size and texture, and 
'flavorless, when compared with these bilious-looking bi- 
valves. 

" Baedeker says they were celebrated in ancient times," 
remarked Miss M . 

Glaucus regretted that he could not give his guests the 
oysters he "had hoped to procure from Britain," yet sub- 
joins that "they want the richness" — (the copperiness) — • 
" of the Brundusium oyster." 

Old Baise is a heap of confusion and desolation that 
cumbers the hill overlooking the modern town. The only 
ruins at all suggestive of the state and luxury which were 
the boast of patrician Rome when Augustus reigned and 
Horace wrote, are the foundations and part of the walls of 
the Temples of Mercury and Diana. The former is a round 
building with a domed roof open-eyed at the top, like the 
Pantheon. Six horrible hags, their parchment dewlaps 
-dangling odiously, their black eyes glittering with hunger 
and cunning, in rags like tattered bed-quilts, here insist upon 
dancing the tarantella for the amusement of forestieri. 
They are always in the temple. They have, presumably, 
no other abode. In other doomed pleasant palaces than 
those of Babylon, the imagination takes up Isaiah's 
lament : — 

" Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and the 
daughters of the owl shall dwell there^ and satyrs shall dance 
there ! " 

The Villa Bauli used to stand near Baise. Here, Nero 
plotted his mother's murder. Another ruined pile was 
the villa in which he consented, with a feint of reluctance 
that did not impose upon his accomplice, to the proposi- 



292 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

tion of Anicetus to drown her by the sinking of her galley. 
Julius Caesar had a summer residence upon the neighbor- 
ing heights. 

Ernesto brought us back to Naples over the hill of 
Posilipo, instead of through the tunnel, gaining the sum- 
mit when the glory of the sunsetting was at fullest tide. 
Such light and such splendor as were never before — or 
since — for us upon land or sea. To attempt description 
in human speech would be, in me, presumption so rank as 
to verge upon profanation. But when I would renew — in 
such faint measure as memory and fancy can revive past 
ecstasy — the scene and emotion that made that evening a 
joy for ever, I recite to myself words evoked by the view 
from a true poet-soul and — 

** With dreamful eyes 
My spirit lies 
Under the walls of Paradise." 




CHAPTER XXI. 

*' A Sorosis Lark!' 

HEN we left Naples in January the snow lay 
whitely upon the scarred poll of Vesuvius. Yet, 
as we drove to the station, we were beset by 
boys and girls running between the wheels of our carriage 
and ducking under the horses' heads, clamorously offer- 
ing bouquets of roses, violets and camellias that had 
blossomed in the open gardens. To save the bones, for 
which they showed no regard, each of us loaded herself 
with an immense bunch of flowers she was tempted, a 
dozen times before night, to throw out of the car-window. 
I counted ten japonicas in mine — white, creamy, and 
delicate pink — and I paid the black-eyed vender fifty 
centimes, ten cents, for all. 

We ran down to the sea-shore again in April, the laugh- 
ing, fecund April, that rioted over the Campagna the day 
we went to Tusculum. Caput was detained in Rome, and 
I acted as chaperone to five of the brightest, merriest 
American girls that ever set off upon a pleasure trip. *' A 
Sorosis Lark," one named it, while another was inquisitive 
as to the kinship of this bird to Athene's owl. 

We took the railway from Naples to Pompeii. Used as 
we were to the odd jumble of old and new forced upon 
our notice on all public lines of travel in the Old World, it 
yet gave us a queer thrill to hear the station at Pompeii 



294 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

called out in the mechanical sing-song that announces our 
arrival at "Richmond" or "Jersey City." No. 27 was 
already engaged, much to our regret, but he recognized 
us, and introduced his comrade, No. 18, who, he guaranteed, 
" would give us satisfaction." A jolly, kindly old fellow 
we found him to be, more garrulous than his friend, but so 
staid and respectable that, when I grew tired, I committed 
the four younger ladies to his guardianship, and sat me 
down in company with my dear, and for so long, fellow- 
traveller, Miss M , upon the top step of the Temple of 

Jupiter to rest, promising to rejoin the party at the house 
of Glaucus. 

We spread our shawls upon the marble to make the 
seat safe and comfortable, and when the voices of guide 
and girls were lost in the distance, had, to all appearance, 
the exhumed city for our own. Vesuvius was slightly 
restless at this date. The night before, we had rushed out 
upon the balcony of the hotel parlor at a warning cry, and 
seen the canopy of smoke above the mountain blood-red 
with reflections from the crater. Now, as we watched the 
destroyer, fast bulging volumes of vapor, white and gray, 
rose against the blue heavens. We pictured, by their help, 
the Cimmerian gloom of the night-in-day that rained ashes 
and scalding water upon fair and populous Pompeii. 
Night of eighteen cejnturies to temple, mart and dwelling, 
leaving, when the morning came, the bleached skeleton 
we now looked upon. " The City of the Dead ! " repeated 
Sir Walter Scott, over and again, as he surveyed the dis- 
interred ruins. Life seems absolutely suspended within 
its gates. While we sat there, we heard neither twittering 
bird nor chirp of insect. Even the lithe green lizards that 
frisk over and in other ruined walls, shun these, blasted by 
the hot showers,^out of mind for forty generations of liv- 
ing men. 



''A SOROSIS LARK. 295 

We must have rested thus, and chatted softly of these 
things, for fully half an hour, when a large party, appear- 
ing suddenly in the echoless silence, from behind the walls 
of a neighboring court-yard, stared curiously at us, and 
we remembered that our being there without a guide was 
an infringement of rules. The custodian of the strangers 
assumed, politely, that we had lost our way, and when we 
named our rendezvous, directed us how to get thither by 
the shortest route. We were properly grateful, and when 
his back was turned, chose our own way and time for doing 
as we pleased. Were we not habitues of Pompeii — friends 
of older inhabitants than he dreamed of in his round ? 

We were too early, after all, for the rest, although long 
after the hour agreed upon for the meeting. While Miss 

M sallied forth on a private exploration of the vicinity, 

I sat in the shadow of the wall upon the step of the peri- 
style once adorned by Nydia's flower-borders, and re-read 
the description of the scene between her and Glaucus 
when, upon this very spot, he told the blind girl of his 
love for the Neapolitan, summoning her from her graceful 
task of " sprinkling the thirsting plants which seemed to 
brighten at her approach." He had bidden her seek him 
in the triclinum over there — *'the chamber of Leda" when 
she had gathered the flowers he would send to lone. Here, 
too, she gave him the philtre that was to win his love, and 
robbed him of his senses. 

The laggards rejoined us before I had become impatient. 
Gay, fresh voices put phantoms and musing to flight. All 
were in high good humor. Their guide had allowed them 
to loiter and investigate to their heart's content, and pre- 
sented each with a bit of seasoned soap eighteen hundred 
years old, which, by the way, we tried that night and 
proved by the '' lathering" to be saponaceous and of good 
quality. He had dashed their complacency by remarking, 



296 LOITERTNGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

without *the remotest suspicion that he was uttering dis- 
praise, that he always recognized Americans by their nasal 
articulation, but reinstated himself in their favor and them- 
selves, also, by expressing surprise and delight that all 
four could converse fluently in his native tongue. We ex- 
tended our ramble beyond the Villa of Diomed into the 
Street of Tombs — the Via Appia — that, in former times, 
extended, without a break, all the way to Rome. 

Was it in ostentatious display of their family mauso- 
leums, or in callous contempt of natural loves and human 
griefs, or, from a desire to honor the 7?ianes of the departed, 
and remind the living of their mortality, that the traveler 
to these ancient cities entered them between a double file 
of the dead ? Was there recognition, however vague, of 
the great fact that, through Death we gain Life ? 

We were to spend the night at Castellamare, and having, 
through a provoking blunder for which we could only 
blame ourselves, missed the five o'clock train, were obliged 
to remain in the Pompeii station until nine. We had 
lunched at the restaurant — and a villainous lunch it was — 
and being hungiy and weary, and out of patience with our 
stupidity, would have been held excusable by charitable 
people had we been slightly cross. I record that we were 
not, as an additional proof of the Tapleyish turn of the 
feminine disposition. I take no credit to myself. I was 
tired beyond the ability to complain. Laid upon a bench, 
cushioned by the spare wraps of the party, my head in 
Prima's lap, I beheld in admiration I lacked energy to ex- 
press, the unflagging good-humor of my charges ; the 
"small, sweet courtesies" that made harmless play of 
badinage and repartee. They called up a boy of ten, the 
son of the station-master, from his hiding-place behind 
the door communicating with the family apartments, and 
talked to him of his life and likings. He was civil, but 



''A SOROSIS LARK." 29/ 

not clean — a shrewd, knavish sprite, judging from his phy- 
siognomy, but a fond brother to the little sister who soon 
crept after him. She wore a single garment that had, 
probably, never been whole or neat in her existence of two 
years. Even *' our girls " could not pet her. But they 
spoke to her kindly as she planted herself before them on 
her two naked feet, her neck encircled by her brothers 
arm, and gave her bon-bons. The boy bade her say, " Gra- 
zief' and supplemented her lisp with ''Tank 'oo ! " and 
" Goot morning ! " — his whole stock of English. 

The four hours passed at last, and we quitted the dim 
waiting-room for pitchy darkness and pouring rain out- 
side. At Castellamare, we were set down upon an open 
platform. The clouds were falling upon us in sheets ; the 
wind caught savagely at our light sun-umbrellas, our only 
defence against the storm. The pavement was ankle-deep 
in w^ater, and it was ten o'clock at night. We had been 
recommended to go to Miss Baker's excellent pensmi on 
the hill, but it was a full mile away, and we were wet in 
an instant. In the dismayed confusion, nobody knew just 
how it happened, or w^ho first spoke the word of doom, 
but we packed ourselves and dripping garments into car- 
riages and were driven to the Hotel Royale. The land- 
lady — or housekeeper — stationed in the vestibule, took in 
our plight and her advantage at one fell glance. She met 
us with a feline smile, and we were hers. 

'' My mother is not well. We must have a room, with a 
fire, for her, at once. And not too high up ! " said Prima, 
breathlessly, not waiting to mop her wet face and hair. 

Felina smiled more widely ; jingled her keys and studied 
the red rosette of a slipper she put foi-ward for that purpose. 

"I have rooms — certainly." 

" Let us see them — please ! This lady must not stand 
here in her wet clothes ! " cried all in one voice. 



298 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

** Here " was a lofty passage whose stone floor was swept 
by draughts of damp air. 

** She will catch her death of cold ! " subjoined Prima, 
frantic. 

Felina put out another slipper ; assured herself that the 
rosette was upon it, also. ^'I have rooms. One large. 
Two small. On third floor." 

I will not prolong the scene. We stood where we were, 
in opposition to our entreaties to be allowed to enter the 
salle, while the negotiation was pending, until we agreed 
to take her three rooms, unseen, at her prices. Extortion- 
ate we knew them to be and said as much to Felina's face, 
eliciting a tigerish expansion of the thin lips, and — "As 
Mesdames like. I have said I have three rooms. One 
large. Two small." 

Up one hundred (counted) stone stairs we trudged, to a 
barn of a room, the sea breaking and the winds screaming 
against the outer walls. There we learned that neither 
fire nor hot supper was to be our portion that night, and 
that for meals served in bed-chambers an extra sum must 
be paid. 

" But you said we could not have supper down-stairs at 
this hour ! We have had no dinner. To say nothing of 
being wet to the skin. Cannot you send up a bowl of hot 
soup ?" 

Of course the plea dashed vainly against her smile. 

"But," a touch of disdain for my weakness mingling 
with it, as she saAv the girls wrap me in dry blankets 
pulled from the bed, lay me upon the sofa, and chafe 
my feet — " Madame can have a cup of tea should she 
desire it." 

A very grand butler brought up the tea-equipage at 
eleven o'clock. Spread upon a broad platter were as many 
slices of pale, cold mutton as there were starving guests. 



''A SOROSIS LARK." 299 

A roll apiece was in the bread-tray. A canine hunger was 
upon us. Our teeth chattered with cold and nervousness. 
We chafed under the knowledge of being cheated, out- 
witted, outraged. Yet when the supper was set out upon 
the round table wheeled up to my couch, and we recog- 
nized in it the climax of our woes, we shouted with laugh- 
ter until the waiter grinned in sympathy. 

Then — ^we made a night of it — for two hours. We 
drained tea-pot and kettle, and would have chewed the 
tea-leaves had any strength remained in them ; drank all 
the blue milk, and ate every lump of sugar ; left not a 
crumb of roll or meat to tell the tale of the abuse of hotel 
Siiid padrona with which we seasoned their dryness. We 
told stories ; held discussions, historical, philosophical, 
and theological ; laughed handsomely at each other's bon- 
7Jiots, and were secretly vain of our own, — wrapped, all the 
while, from head to heels in shawls, blankets, and bed- 
spreads, the girls with pillows under their feet to avoid the 
chill of the flooring. The destined occupants of the small 
rooms kissed us '' Good night," at last. Prima — still 
fuming, poor child ! and marveling audibly what report 
she should make to him whose latest words were an exhor- 
tation ''upon no account to let Mamma take cold," — tuck- 
ed me up in one of the single beds, and pinned the flimsy 
curtains together. They swayed and billowed in the gusts 
rushing between the joints of the casements. The surf- 
roar was deafening ; the wash of the waves so distinct and 
sibilant, I fancied sometimes I heard it gurgling over the 
floor. It was futile to think of sleep, but, after the fatigue 
and excitement of the day, I watched out the hours be- 
tween our late bed-time and the dawn, not unhappily. 

Castellamare is the ancient Stabiae — or, more correctly 
speaking — it occupied the site of that ill-starred town de- 
stroyed by the earthquake that forced from Vesuvius ashes 



300 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and boiling water-spouts upon Pompeii. Here perished 
the elder Pliny, suffocated by the mephitic vapors of the 
eruption. By morning the storm had exhausted itself. 
From my windows I looked down upon the spot where 
Pliny died, and over a sea of the matchless blue no one 
will believe in who sees the Bay of Naples in pictures only. 
Overhead, a sky whose serenity had in it no reminiscence 
of last night's rage, bowed over the smiling earth. 

We paid for our supper, — a franc for each bit of pallid 
mutton ; half-a-franc for each roll, and as much for every 
cup of tea; for '' service " — two francs each; — for lodg- 
ings, five francs for each hard bed, and at the like rate for 
the stale eggs, burnt toast, and thick chocolate that formed 
our breakfast. Then, heedless of Felina's representations 
that ''strangers were always cheated in the town," we sent 
out an Italian-speaking committee of two, who hired a 
carriage and horses at half the sum for which she offered 
hers, and were off for Sorrento. The drive between the 
two towns is justly noted for its beauty and variety. The 
play of prismatic lights upon the sea was exquisitely lovely : 
Capri was a great amethyst ; Ischia and Procida milk-opals 
in the softly-colored distance, w^hile on, above and below 
the ridge along which ran the carriage-road, lay Fairy 
Land — the Delectable Mountains — Heaven come down to 
earth ! Mulberry trees looped together for long miles by 
swaying vines laden with young grapes ; orange and fig- 
orchards in full bearing ; olive-groves, silvery-gray after the 
rain ; all manner of flowering trees, shrubs, and plants ; 
lordly castles upon the high hills ; vine-draped cottages 
nestling in vales and hollows ; ravines, dark with green 
shadows, that let us catch only stray glimpses of flashing 
torrents and cascades, spanned by bridges built by Augus- 
tus or Marcus Aurelius ; under our wheels a road of 
firmest rock, without rut or pebble ; between us and the 



*'A SOROSIS LARK." 30I 

steeps on the verge of which we drove — breast-high para- 
pets adding to our enjoyment of the wonderful scene the 
quietness of perfect security against the chance of mishap 
— these were some of the features of the seven most beau- 
tiful miles in Southern Europe. The sea-breeze was fresh, 
not rude, the sky speckless, but the heat temperate. 

If we had sought a thorough contrast to the experiences 
of the previous evening, we could not have attained our 
end more triumphantly than by pitching our moving tent 
during our stay in Sorrento at the Hotel Tramontana. It 
includes under its stretch of roofs the house of Tasso, 
where he dwxlt with his widowed sister, from June, 1577, 
until the summer of the ensuing year, — retirement which 
purchased bodily health and peace of mind, that had not 
been his in court and palace. The situation of the hotel 
is picturesque, the balconies overhanging the beach, and 
the seaward outlook is enchanting. All the appointments — 
not excepting landlady and housekeeper — were admirable 
— and the terms less exorbitant than Felina's lowest 
charges. It was while guests here, and in obedience to 
information rendered by the hospitable proprietor, that we 
made our memorable and only raid upon an orange- 
orchard. Italian oranges, let me say, en passant, are, in 
their perfection and at the most favorable season, inferior 
in richness and sweetness to our Havana and Florida* fruit. 
The sourest I ever tasted were bought in Rome, and war- 
ranted ^^ dolce.'' Single oranges, and oranges in twos and 
threes, we had eaten from the trees in the garden of the 
Tramontana Hotel. Oranges by the quantity — as we had 
vowed to behold and pluck them — were to be had some- 
where for the picking. In our character as independent 
Sorosis larks, we pined for these and liberty — to gather at 
our will. I have forgotten the name lettered upon the 
gate-posts at which our cocchiere set us down. " Villa " 



302 LOITERTNGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Something or Somebody. We saw no buildings whatso- 
ever, going no further into the estate than the orchard of 
orange and lemon-trees in luxuriant fruitage, and smaller, 
sturdier trees, that had borne, earlier in the season, the 
aromatic dwarf-orange, or inandarino. 

''^ Tutti finiti ! '' said the gardener when w^e asked for 
these. 

We consoled ourselves by filling our pockets with fruit 
when we had eaten all we could. " Could " signifies more 
than the uninitiated can believe to a group of American 
girls knee-deep in soft, lush grasses, orange-flower scent 
distilling into the warm air from a thousand tiny retorts, 
globes of red-gold hanging thick between them and the 
sky, and such exuberance of fun as only glad-hearted 
American girls can know, ruling the hour. We had made, 
in the hearing of our cocchitre, a bargain with the propre- 
tor of the Hesperides. We were to eat all we wanted, and 
carry away all we could without baskets, and pay him a 
franc and a half at the gate on our return. I dare not say 
how many we plucked, sucked dry and threw away empty, 
or how many more we carried off in the pockets of over- 
skirts, lower skirts and jackets. We were in the orchard 
for an hour, wading through the cool grass, making criti- 
cal selections from the loaded boughs and leisurely regale- 
ment upon our spoils, and talking even more nonsense 
than we had done during the nocturnal revel over cold, 
white mutton and weak tea at the Hotel Royale. The 
gardener followed us wherever we moved, eying us as 
sourly as if he had lived from childhood upon unripe 
lemons. At the gate he broke our contract by demanding 
two francs and a half for the damage done his orchard. 
With (Italian) tears in his eyes he protested that he had 
never imagined the possibility of ladies eating so many 
oranges, or pockets so enormous ; that we had consumed 



303 

the profits of his entire crop in one rapacious hour — and 
so much more to the Uke effect that we passed from com- 
passion and repentance to skepticism and indignation, and 
called up the cocchiere as witness and umpire. He scratched 
his head very hard, and listened very gravely to both sides, 
before rendering a verdict. Then he hinted gently that, 
being novices in the business of orchard-raids, we had 
possibly overacted our parts ; that our appetites orange- 
ward had passed the bounds of the Sorrento imagination, 
and that American pockets were a trifle larger than those 
of his country-people. Naturally, since Americans had so 
much more to put into them. But honor was honor, and 
a bargain a bargain. What if we were to pay the uncon- 
scionable, injured husbandman — whose oranges were the 
whole living of himself and family — two francs to com- 
pensate for his losses and out of sheer charity. 

We were willing, the husbandman mournfully resigned, 
and cocchiere received huono mano for his amicable adjust- 
ment of the difficulty. 

We had a real adventure upon the return trip to Naples. 
Our party filled a railway carriage with the exception of 
two seats, one of which was taken by an elderly German, 
the other by an Italian officer, whose bright eyes and 
bronzed complexion were brighter and darker for his 
snowy hair. Ernesto had engaged to meet us at the station 
at nine o'clock p.m. We had no apprehension on the 
score of the proprieties with so steady and tried a coach- 
man. But we were loaded down with parcels of Sorrento 
woodwork, and the streets swarmed with daring thieves. 
At a former visit to Naples, as we were driving through 
the Chiaja, the fashionable thoroughfare of the city, a man 
had sprung upon the carriage-step, snatched a gold chain 
and locket from the neck of a young lady sitting opposite 
to me, and made off with his booty before we could call 



304 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

out to Caput who sat beside the coachman. The streets 
were one blaze of lamps, the hour early dusk ; a hundred 
people must have witnessed the robbery, but nobody 
interfered. 

"We shall have trouble with all these, I am afraid!" 
remarked I, looking at the bulky bundles. 

'' You vill, inteet ! " struck in the German, respectfully. 
*' I dit haf to bay effer so mooch duty on some photograph 
I did dake from Bompeii to Naple dis last veek." 

** Duty ! in going from one Italian city to another ! " 

*' Duty ! and a fery heafy impost it is ! Brigand dey are 
— de Gofferment and all ! " 

We had spent so much of our substance — rating avail- 
able funds as such — in the ruinously-fascinating shops of 
Sorrento that the prospect of duties that might double the 
sum was no bagatelle. The story sounded incredible. We 
appealed to the officer, making frank disclosure of our 
purchases and ignorance of custom-house regulations. He 
w^as a handsome man, with a fatherliness of manner in 
hearkening to our story that won our confidence. It was 
true, he stated, that imposts were levied by one Italian 
city and province upon the products of another. Equally 
true that it w^as a relic of less enlightened days when union 
of the different states under one government was a dream, 
even of wise patriots. He advised us to conceal as many 
of our parcels under our cloaks as we could, to avoid 
notice and a scene at the gate of the station. Should we 
be stopped, he would represent the case in its proper aspect, 
and do what he could to help us. 

''Although" — with a smile — "custom-house officials do 
not relish interference from any quarter." 

He spoke French fluently, but the conversation that 
succeeded was in his own tongue. He was a gentleman, 
intelligent and social, with the gentle, winning courtesy of 



'* A SOROSIS LARK." 305 

speech and demeanor that characterizes the well-bred 
Italian, infinitely more pleasing than the polished hollow- 
ness of the Frenchman of equal rank. As we were running 
into the station he asked permission to carry a large port- 
folio one of us had bought. His short, military cloak, 
clasped at the throat, and falling over one arm, hid it 
entirely. 

'' And yours ? " he turned to Miss M , whose posses- 
sions were most conspicuous of all. 

''Tell him," she said to Prima, in her pleasant, even 
tones, ''that I will hide nothing. I have been all over the 
Continent with all sorts of things known as contraband in 
my satchel and trunks, and have never paid a cent of duty. 
Nobody troubles me. They see that I am an American 
who speaks no language but her own, therefore is perfectly 
honest. They would let me pass if I were made of Sor- 
rento wood, carved and inlaid in the most expensive style. 
You will see ! I bear a charmed life." 

I went through the gate first. There was room but for 
one at a time. 

"Z^ Ranter" an officer touched my little basket of 
oranges. 

I opened it. 

"You can pass." 

Miss M was next. Serene as a May morning in her 

native Virginia, bending her head slightly and courteously 
to the myrmidons of the law, as she walked between them, 
loaded up to the chin with flat, round and irregular pack- 
ages concerning whose contents there was not a possibility 
of mistake — she was the impersonation of a conscience void 
of offence to this or any other government. The officials 
were alive in a second. 

" Sorrento ! " ejaculated one, and in French, requested 
her to step back into the custom-house office. 



306 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

^' I don't speak French," said the delinquent, smiling 
calmly, and passed right oil. 

Six of them buzzed after, and around her, like so many 
bees, letting the rest of the party walk unchallenged 
through the gate. 

'' I don't speak Italian ! " she observed, with a pitying 
smile, at their grimacing and posturing. ^'Not a 
word ! I am sorry I cannot understand you. I am an 
American ! " 

Still walking forward, her parcels clasped in her arms. 

We laughed. We could not help.it. But it was unwise, 
for the men grew angry as w^ell as vociferous, dancing 
around their prisoner in a transport of enraged perplexity 
that put a new face upon the affair. Prima went to the 
rescue of her undismayed friend. She assured the officers 
that the lady was really ignorant of their language, and 
willing to do what was just and right. Calming down, 
they yet declared that she, and, indeed, all of us, must go 
into the office, give an account of ourselves, and pay duty 
upon such contraband articles as we had with us. It might 
be a form, but it was the law. Where was our gray-haired 
officer all this while ? We had not seen him since he 
assisted us to alight from the carriage, the precious port- 
folio held cleverly under his left arm. Now, casting 
anxious eyes upon the crowd gathering about our devoted 
band, we looked vainly for the silvery head and military 
cap, for the gleam of the gold lace upon his one uncovered 
shoulder. It was plain that he had deserted us at the first 
note of alarm. 

'' And my beautiful portfolio ! " gasped the late owner 
thereof. 

We were at the gate, Miss M the only composed 

one of the humbled " larks," the curious throng pressing 
nearer and closer, when down into their ranks charged a 



'*A SOROSIS LARK. 307 

flying figure, careless that the streaming cloak revealed the 
Sorrento' folio — waving a paper in his hand. The officers 
raised their caps ; fell away from us and ordered off the 
gaping bystanders. 

''I am most sorry," said our deliverer, breathless with 
haste. ''But when I saw the men stop you, I went into 
the Custom-House to obtain a pass in due form from the 
chief." 

Prima has it to this day. It certified that the contents 
of our parcels were '' articles de luxe " for our personal use, 
and ordered that we should be suffered to proceed upon 
our way unmolested. 

'' It was the shortest way, and the safest," pursued our 
self-constituted escort, walking with us to the carriage. 
'' But allow me to express my sorrow that you were 
subjected to even a momentary annoyance." 

He handed us into our'carriage ; regretted that his return 
that night to Castellamare would prevent him from being 
of further service to us during our stay in Naples, smiled 
and disclaimed when we thanked him warmly for his 
kindness, and uncovered his dear old head as we drove 
away. 

Miss M sank back with a long sobbing breath, the 

first indication of agitation she had displayed since the 
arrest at the gate : 

'* r shall love the sight of the Italian uniform as long as 
I live ! " she averred, with heartfelt emphasis. 

'' So said " — and so do — " all of us ! " 




CHAPTER XXII. 

In Florence and Pisa. 

LORENCE in May is a very different place from 
Florence in November. Still it rained every day, 
or night, of the month we passed there ; showers 
that made the earth greener, tlie air clearer. We were 
homesick for Rome, too, although our lodgings with 
Madame Giotti, then in Via dei Serragli — now in Piazza 
Soderini, were the next best thing to the sunny apparti- 
mento No. 8, Via San Sebastiano, that had been home to 
us for almost six months. 

Madame Bettina Giotti, trim and kindly, who speaks 
charmingly-quaint English and "likes Americans," was to 
us the embodiment of genuine hospitality, irrespective of 
the relations of landlady and boarder. We had a most 
comfortable suite of rooms, a private table, where she 
served us in person, and which was spread with the best 
food, as to quality, variety and cookery, we had upon the 
other side of the water — Paris not excepted. 

We gave ourselves, thus situated, resolutely and system- 
atically to sight-seeing. 

The Invaluable and Boy had a pass that admitted them 
daily, and at all hours, to the Boboli Gardens, and we left 
them to their own devices while we spent whole days in 
the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, roaming among the tombs of 
the illustrious dead in S. Croce and S. Lorenzo, studying 
and enjoying art everywhere in this, her home, and where 



I 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 309 

men most delight to do her honor. History and religion 
have here their notable shrines, also. Both combine to 
make the extensive square before the Palazzo Vecchio a 
spot to which pilgrim-footsteps turn from all quarters of 
Christendom. 

It is the ancient Forum of the Florentine Republic. The 
surges of commercial and political life yet beat upon and 
across it. The Palace is old, and replete with interest to 
the historical student. The Great Hall in its centre was 
built under the direction of Jerome Savonarola in 1495. 
Three years later, they put him to death at the stake in 
the Piazza della Signoria — the square just mentioned — and 
had the wind set that way, the smoke of his burning must 
have filled the spacious chamber planned by him while 
virtual Dictator of Florence. There lies upon the table 
beside me, a photograph of a rude picture of his martyr- 
dom. The Palace is the same we look upon now, at 
the side of an area, vaster then than at present, the same 
lofty, square tower capping the gloomy building. The 
judges sit upon benches against the outer wall. A tem- 
porary gangway extends from their platform to the gibbet 
in the open space. On this walk the three condemned 
monks, in white shrouds, each between two confessors in 
black, toward the fire blazing under the gallows. They 
burned Savonarola's body after it had suffered the extremest 
indignity of the law, such was their lust of rage against the 
man who had turned their world upside down — the Re- 
former born out of time by two hundred years. Until 
very lately it was the custom among the common people 
to strew with violets, on each anniversary of the event, the 
pavement on which he perished. 

*' To prove that all the winters that have snowed 
Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air 
Of a sincere man's virtues." 



3IO LOITERIXGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

« 
Savonarola had had his autos-da-fe in places as public as 

the Piazza della Signoria — pyres, on which women cast 

rouge-pots, and false hair, and all manner of meretricious 

personal adornments ; to whose flames bad books and 

licentious paintings and statues were resigned by converted 

authors and owners. The thunders of his invectives 

against spiritual wickedness in high places, reached and 

jarred the proudest throne in Christian Europe. To the 

proffered bribe of a cardinal's hat, he returned w^ord — " I 

w411 have no red hat, but one reddened with mine own 

blood — the crown given to the saints." 

Pope and rabble granted his wish. 

From the scene of his death we drove straight to the 
Convent of San Marco, his home. Upon the walls and 
roof of the monastery, the friars fought like trapped wolves 
on the night of the requisition for their brother. It was 
he, not they, who surrendered the body of Savonarola to 
save the sacred place from sack and fire. It was, then, 
outside of the town that is now packed in dense, high 
blocks and far-reaching streets all around church and 
cloisters. These last surround a quadrangle of turf and 
flowers. The street-gate shut behind us with a resonant 
clang, and conventual loneliness and quietness were about 
us. Above the sacristy-door is a fresco of Peter the 
Martyr, his hand laid upon his mouth, signifying that 
silence was the rule of the Dominican order. The spirit 
of the brotherhood lingers here yet, impressing itself upon 
all who pass within the monastic bounds. We spoke and 
stepped softly, without bidding on the subject, in going 
from one to another of the frescoes on the inner walls of 
the porticoes or open cloisters. They are nearly all from 
the hand — and heart — of John of Fiesole, known best as 
Fra Angelico, the monk of sweet and holy memory, who 
prayed while he painted ; whose demons were all amiable 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 3 II 

failures ; whose angel-faces came to him in celestial trances. 
The unoccupied cells of the monks on the second floor — 
square closets, each containing a single window, are adorn- 
ed with pictures of the Passion from his brush. Faded, 
now — never elaborate in color or finish, each tells its story, 
and with power. How much more eloquent must that 
story have been when the solitary inmate of the chamber 
knelt upon the bare floor, the awful silence that could be 
heard shutting down upon him — the one token of human 
sympathy left him, the agonizing image above his oratory ! 
In Savonarola's room are his chair, haircloth shirt, MSS., 
crucifix, and, among other relics, a piece of wood from his 
gibbet. His portrait hangs over his writing-table. It is a 
harsh, strong, dark visage in striking profile, the monk's 
cowl drawn tightly around it. We obtained photographs 
of it in the convent, and one of Fra Angelico, a mild, 
beautiful face, with a happy secret in the large, luminous 
eyes. Mrs. Browning interprets it : 

** Angelico, 
The artist-saint, kept smiling in his cell. 
The smile with which he welcomed the sweet, slow 
Inbreak of angels — (whitening through the dim. 
That he might paint them)." 

Yet he was, in religious phrase, the ''dear brother" of 
Savonarola, and, for long in daily companionship with him. 

Fra Benedetto, the brother, according to the flesh, of 
John of Fiesole, was, likewise, an artist. In the library of 
the convent, together with many other illuminated missals, 
are the Gospels, exquisitely embellished by him, with 
miniatures of apostles and saints. A smaller hall, near the 
library, is lined with an imposing array of flags of all the 
towns and corporations of Italy, collected here after the 
Dante Festival, May 14th, 1865. 



312 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Dante's monument, inaugurated at that date, on the 
six hundredth anniversary of his birth, stands in the Piazza 
S. Croce, facing the church. A lordly pile in his honor, 
on the summit of which he sits in sombre sovereignty, 
takes up much space in the right aisle of this famous 
fane — ^'the Pantheon of Modern Italy." His remains are 
at Ravenna. The epitaph on his tomb-stone, dictated by 
himself, styles Florence the "least-loving of all mothers." 
She exiled him, setting a price upon his head ; made him 
for nineteen years, he says, " a vessel without sail or 
rudder, driven to divers ports, estuaries and shores by that 
hot blast, the breath of grievous poverty." When she re- 
laxed her persecutions so far as to recall him upon condi- 
tion of confession and fine, he refused to enter her gates. 
Upon bended knee, Florence prayed Ravenna to surrender 
his remains to his ''Mother-city" less than a century after 
he died, a petition oft and piteously renewed. But the 
plucky little town holds him yet to her heart, and Florence 
accounts as holy, for his sake, such things as the dirty 
bench fastened in the wall of a house opposite the Cam- 
panile and Cathedral, whereon he used to sit day after day 
to watch the building of the latter. 

The centuries through which this work was dragged 
were a woful drawback to its external comeliness. Since 
we saw it, as we learn from the indignant outcries of art- 
critics, it has been ''cleaned." "A perfectly uninjured 
building," wails one, "with every slenderest detail fine 
and clear as the sunshine that streams on it in mid-summer 
— is drenched in corrosive liquids until all the outer shell 
of the delicate outlines is hacked and chipped away, the 
laborers hammering on at all these exquisite and match- 
less sculptures as unconcernedly as they would hammer at 
the blocks of inacigno with which they would repave the 
streets ! " I confess — albeit, as I have intimated before. 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 313 

■ — not an art-critic, that in perusing the above, the *' cor- 
rosive liquids" ate into my finest sensibilities, and the 
^'^ hammering" was upon my very heart. But my recollec- 
tion of the condition of the building in 1877 is not of har- 
mony, or such fineness and clearness as our plaintiff 
describes. These existed unquestionably in form and pro- 
portion. But the walls of black and white marble were 
*' streaky," soiled and clean portions, fitted together with- 
out intervening shading, denoting where the builders of 
one age left off and those of the next began anew. An 
attempt to cleanse it, set on foot some years previous, had 
marred the Duomo yet more. The effect was that of a 
" half-and-half " penitentiary garment. Those who know 
edifices like this and the Milan Cathedral, and that one 
of the *' Seven Lamps of Architecture," Giotti's Campa- 
nile, from photographs, have one advantage over Ifona fide 
travelers. The stains and cracks of time are softened into 
mellow uniformity in the sun-picture that yet preserves 
faithfully each grace of design and workmanship. He 
who dreams over the stereoscopic view which brings out 
carvings and angles, and the expression of the whole 
building with magic accuracy, is spared the pain of seeing 
that the miracle of architectural genius in marble or bronze 
is undeniably and vulgarly dirty. This is especially true 
of the Baptistery. The bronze doors (I am not going to 
repeat Michael Angelo's remark touching them upon the 
thousandth part of a chance that one man or woman in 
the United States may not have heard it) are so encrusted 
with the dust of as many ages as they have hung in their 
present place that one cannot distinguish between Noah 
drunk and Noah sober ; between Cain slaying his brother 
and Adam tilling the ground. The interior would be vastly 
improved, not by hammering workmen, and corrosive 
liquids, but by a genuine New England house-cleaning. 
14 



314 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

A hogsliead of disinfectants would not dispel the mouldy, 
sickly odor that clings to the walls and unclean lioor. All 
the children born in Florence of Roman Catholic parents 
are brought hither for baptism. We never peeped in at 
the mighty door without seeing one or more at the font. 
After one closer view of the parties to the ceremony, we 
refrained from approaching that part of the building while 
it was thus occupied. 

We had been for a long drive in the Cascine — the Cen- 
tral Park of the Florentines — extended into the country, 
and, our hands full of wild flowers, the odors of field and 
hedge and garden lingering in our senses, alighted at the 
Baptistery, attracted by the spectacle of a group dimly 
visible from the sunlit street. It had seemed a pretty 
fancy to us, this gathering all the lambs of Firenze into 
one visible earthly fold, and one that peopled the dusky 
Rotunda with images of innocence and beauty. We would 
make these definite and lasting by witnessing the solemn 
rite. A priest in a dirty gown mumbled prayers from a dog- 
eared book ; a grimy-faced boy in a dirtier white petti- 
coat and a dirtiest short-gown, trimmed with cotton-lace, 
swung a censer too indolently to disturb the foul air. A 
woman in clothes that were whole, but not clean, held the 
bambino. I do not like to call it a baby. It was wound 
from feet to arm-pits, as are all the Italian children of the 
lower classes, in swaddling-linen, fold upon fold, until the 
lower part of the body is as stiff as that of a corpse. These, 
wrappings are never loosened during the day. I cannot 
answer for the fashion of their night-gear. The unhappy 
little mummy in question was, in complexion, a livid purple, 
and gasped, all the while, as in the article of death. The 
cradle-bands had apparently come down to it through a 
succession of brother and sister bambini, with scanty inter- 
ference on the part of washerwomen, and bade fair to be^ 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 315 

come its winding-sheet if not soon removed. The priest 
made the sign of the cross in holy water on the forehead, 
wrinkled like that of an old man, never pausing in his 
Latin rattle and swing ; the acolyte gave a last, lazy toss 
to the censer, drawling, ''A-a-men!" The woman, as 
nonchalant as they, covered in the child from the May air 
with a wadded quilt, wrapping it over the face as Hazael 
laid the wet cloth upon his master's, possibly to the same 
end. The touching rite was disposed of, and the priest 
shuffled out of one door, the acolyte went whistling out of 
another. 

The accomplished author of *' Roba di Roma," says of 
swaddling-bands — '' There are advantages as well as dis- 
advantages in this method of dressing infants. The child 
is so well-supported that it can be safely carried anyhow, 
without breaking its back, or distorting its limbs. It may 
be laid down anywhere, and even be borne on the head in 
its little basket without danger of its wriggling out." 

He doubts, moreover, whether the custom be productive 
of deformity. Perhaps not. But, our attention having 
been directed by the ceremony just described to what was, 
to our notion, a barbarous invention for the promotion of 
infanticide, we noted, henceforward, the proportion of 
persons diseased and deformed in the lower limbs among 
the Florentine street population. The result amazed and 
shocked us. On the afternoon of which I speak, we count- 
ed ten cripples upon one block, and the average number 
of these unfortunates upon others was between seven and 
eight. Join to the tight bands about their trunks and legs 
the close linen, or cotton or woollen caps, worn upon their 
heads, and the lack of daily baths and fresh clothing, and 
it is easy to explain why cutaneous diseases should be 
likewise prevalent. 

The mural tablets of Florence are a study,— sometimes, 



3l6 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

a thrilling one. As when, for example, in driving or walk- 
ing through the old street, neither wide, light, nor pic- 
turesque, of S. Martino, we came upon a tall, stone 
house with queer latticed windows very high up in the 
thick walls, — and deciphered above the doorway these 
w^ords : — 

*' In questacasa degli Alighieri nacque il divina poeta." 
(" In this house of the Alighieri was born the divine poet.") 

There is the tenderness of remorse in the "least-loving 
mother's" every mention of her slighted son — now "chap- 
eled in the bye-way out of sight " — to w^it, — sleepy little 
Ravenna. 

Bianca Capello — fair, fond and false — lived in what is 
now a very shabby palace in Via Maggio, bearing the date, 
"1566." Amerigo Vespucci was esteemed worthy of a 
tablet upon a building in the Borgo Ognissanti. Galileo's 
house is near the Boboli Gardens, and, removed by a 
block or two, is the Museum of Natural Sciences, enshrin- 
ing, as its gem, the Tribuna of Galileo, enriched by his 
portrait, his statue, paintings illustrative of his life, and 
instruments used by him in making mathematical and 
astronomical calculations. His tomb is in the church of 
S. Croce, almost covered with ascriptions to his learning, 
valuable scientific discoveries, etc., etc. Of tomb and epi- 
taph the Infallible Mother is the affectionate warden, 
guarding them, it is to be presumed, as jealously as she 
once did the canon he was convicted of insulting. " The 
world moves," and so must The Church, or be thrown off 
behind. 

*'Casa Guidi " ! **Twixt church and palace of a Flor- 
ence street ! " From which the clear-eyed poetess bent to 
gaze upon the hosts who, — 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 31/ 

*• With accumulated heats, 
And faces turned one way as if one fire 

Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats 
And went up toward the Palace-Pitti wall," 

on a day which ** had noble use among God's days ! " How 
well we had known them, and the face that will look from 
them no more — while as yet the sea divided us from the 
land of her love and adoption ! 

Surely, never had poet more prosaic dwelling-place. 
Casa Guidi is a plain, four-story house, covered with yel- 
lowish stucco, lighted by formal rows of rectangular win- 
dows, without a morsel of moulding or the suspicion of an 
arch to relieve the tameness of the front elevation. It 
opens directly upon the sidewalk of as commonplace a 
street as Florence can show to the disappointed tourist. 
Yet we strolled often by it, lingeringly and lovingly ; 
studied with thoughts, many and fond, the simple tablet 
between the first and second-story casements : 

" Qui scrisse e mori Elisabetta Barrett Browning che in cuore di donna 
conciliava scienza di dotto e spirito di poeta, e del sua verso fece un aiireo" 
anello fra Italia e Inghilterra, Pone alia sua ?nemoria Firenze grata^ 
i86i." 

(** Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who combined with 
a woman's heart, the science of the savant and the mind of the poet, and by 
her verse formed a golden link between Italy and England. Erected to 
her memory by grateful Florence. 1861.") 

This is a free English translation, but it does not — it 
cannot, being English — say to ear and soul what the musi- 
cal flow of the original conveys. 

She is buried in that part of grateful Florence known as 
the English Cemetery. It is smaller than that in Rome, 
and not comparable to it in loveliness or interest. We 
coveted for the woman and the poet a corner of the old 



3l8 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Aurelian ' wall beside Shelley instead of the small plot 
of the main alley of this village of the dead ; — Keats' cov- 
erlet of violets rather than the marble sarcophagus, with 
a pillared base, set hard and flat upon her grave. One 
panel bears her medallion profile in basso-rilievo, and the 
initials '' E. B. B., 1861." There was no need to write 
more. We would have been better satisfied w4th less — 
marble ! Buttercups and daisies pressed over the closed, 
cold mouth of the tomb, and a tea-rose tree at the head 
had strewed it with blushing petals. 

Florence is the acknowledged Queen of Modern Art 
and gives lessons in the same to all civilization. Yet this 
English Burial-ground can show almost as many specimens 
of poor taste and mediocre manipulation as there are 
monuments within its gates ; — a puzzle and a pain to those 
who have luxuriated in galleries and loggie, the very at- 
mosphere of which ought to be, not only inspiration, but 
education. 

Galileo's Observatory, where he watched the stars pale 
before the dawn for many happy nights, — and the Villa, 
in which he lived for the last eleven years of his mortal 
life, — blind, illustrious, and, if we may believe him, con- 
tented ; — whither Milton came to visit and console him 
and was moved to congratulation at the sight of his deep 
tranquillity, — stand upon a hill from whose brow Florence 
is, indeed, la bella. Galileo's lamp hangs in the Cathedral 
of Pisa. 

Our excursion to this city w^as in mid-May. It is dis- 
tant from Florence but four hours by rail. The interven- 
ing country is one of the loveliest tracts in Northern Italy. 
The wheat-fields were ripening into palest green, and 
every breath of wind that ruffled this revealed the scarlet 
sheen of the poppy underrobe. The railway banks were 
beds of mountain-pinks, separated by acres of buttercups 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 319 

and blue flax, clumps of wild roses and geraniums. Up 
to this we had felt no oppressive heats, fast though the 
season was advancing, and to-day, while the train was in 
motion, we rather enjoyed the blaze of sunshine under 
which the landscape glowed, while we gazed, into more 
vivid coloring. But the radiations from the white streets 
of Pisa were blinding. The breeze lost itself among the 
flat outskirts of the town, and was never suspected inland. 

We took carriages at the hotel and drove, untempted to 
loiterings in the shadeless thoroughfares, directly to the 
Cathedral. It is fortunate for travelers who come to Pisa 
in spring or summer, that the four principal objects of in- 
terest, all that one cares to see in the whilom ''queen of 
the western waves," are grouped within a radius of fifty 
yards from the Duomo. Seeking its shadow from the piti- 
less sun, we looked up at the Leaning Tower '' over the 
way." It did not lean as emphatically as we had hoped 
for, nor was it as high as it should have been. But from 
the first glimpse of it, its lightness and grace were an agree- 
able surprise. And it was dean! Seven hundred years 
have not defiled it to the complexion of the Florentine 
Duomo, or even to the cloudiness of '' that model and mir- 
ror of perfect architecture," Giotto's Tower. Its eight- 
storied colonnades of creamy tints passing into white, were 
cast up upon the deep blue background like the frost ar- 
cades raised at night by winter fairies. It was loftier, 
presently, and as it heightened, inclined more gracefully 
toward the earth. 

'^ Like an ice-cream obelisk melting at the base," sug- 
gested a heated spectator pensively. 

We walked around the beautiful, majestic wonder ; gazed 
up at its bent brow from the overhanging side ; measured 
the dip of the foundation by the deepening of the area in 
which it is set, and laughed at ourselves for the natural 



320 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

recoil from walls that seemed to be toppling over upon us. 
While the young people, in the convoy of a guide, climbed 
the three hundred — save six — stairs winding up to the 
summit of the Campanile, Caput and I gladly took refuge 
in the cool dimness of the Cathedral. Seated upon a bench 
exactly over the spot where Galileo used to set his chair 
in order to gaze at the mighty chandelier pendent from the 
ceiling, we, too, watched it. 

It is a grand sight — that great bronze lamp, its scores of 
disused catidle-sockets hanging empty from the three broad 
bands. Five naked boys brace themselves upon their 
chubby feet against the lower band, and do Caryatide-duty 
for the upper. Scrolls, branches, and knops are exquisitely 
wrought, and the length of the chandelier must be at least 
twelve feet. The sacristan told us, in a subdued voice, 
how Galileo had the '^ habitude " of resorting to the church, 
day after day, and sitting ''just here" to think and to 
pray. How his eyes, fixed mechanically upon the lamp, 
noted, one day, that the inclination of the long, slender 
rod to which it is attached was not quite the same at dif- 
ferent hours ; of his excitement as he divined the cause of 
the variation ; that, after this, he haunted the Duomo con- 
tinually until he thought out the truth — ''or" — crossing 
himself, apologetically — "the Blessed Virgin revealed it to 
her faithful worshipper." 

Having Protestant and inconvenient memories, we had 
our thoughts respecting the reception the discovery, to 
which the Virgin helped her protege,^ had from her other 
faithful sons. But we liked the story all the same. We 
were still more pleased when he deserted us to escort two 
German priests, the only other persons present beside 
ourselves, to the contemplation of a large picture of the 
birth of Our Lady. There are many paintings in the Ca- 
thedral and some good ones. Ninety-nine and a half per 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 321 

cent, are in honor of the Virgin Mary. The Madonna 
and Child over the benitier near the entrance are attributed 
to Michael Angelo. 

We saw all these things while waiting for our juniors ; 
then, went back to our bench and our contemplation of 
the lamp, until they rejoined us. 

The Campo Santo is a quadrangle enclosed by chapels, 
with corridors open toward the burial-ground, and paved 
with flat tomb-stones. When the Crusaders of the thir- 
teenth century lost the Holy Land, a pious archbishop of 
Pisa had between fifty and sixty ship-loads of earth brought 
hither from Mount Calvary, and made into a last bed for 
those who loved Jerusalem and mourned her loss. The 
sacred soil had the property of converting bodies laid within 
it into dust so quickly and thoroughly that others could 
follow them within a short time without inconvenience to 
dead or living. The Campo Santo became tremendously 
fashionable, and graves were bought at terrifically high 
prices when one considers the dubious character of the 
privilege connected with the situation. No interments 
have been made here for so long that the quadrangle is a 
smooth lawn edged with flower-borders. 

The frescoes of chapels or corridors are the leading cu- 
riosity of the place. Guide-books and local inventories, 
w^ithout a gleam of humor, write these down as '* remark- 
able," '^admirable," ''celebrated." Only by beholding 
them can one bring himself to believe in the horrible gro- 
tesqueness of these Biblical and allegorical scenes. Hid- 
eous and blasphemous as they were to me, I bought seve- 
ral photographs that my home-friends might credit my 
story of mediaeval religious art. The lower part of one I 
draw, at random, from my collection, represents the Crea- 
tion of Adam. The Creator, a figure with a nimbus about 
his head, a train of attendants similarly crowned, behind 
14* 



322 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

him, — lifts a nude, inert man from the earth. A toothed 
parapet separates this scene in the Drama of Life from one 
above, where the same crowned Figure, in the presence of 
a larger retinue, draws Eve from the side of sleeping Adam. 
She stares about her in true feminine curiosity, clasping 
her hands in a gesture of amazement, or delight, designed, 
no doubt, to contrast strongly, as it does, with the stupid, 
half-awake air with which Adam comes into the world. 
The sleeping bridegroom is disturbed by the extraction of 
his rib, for, without awaking, he puts his hand under his 
arm, touching Eve's toe as it leaves his side. The gravest 
Puritan cannot but see that he is tickled by the operation. 
The lower section of this panel has Adam, clothed in skins, 
digging with a rude hoe, in the parallelograms and circles 
of an Italian garden. The sequence of the narrative is 
interrupted here to put the curse of labor in more signifi- 
cant juxtaposition with the gift of a wife. At the right- 
hand corner of the photograph appears what properly be- 
longs to the third place in the series ; — the guilty pair 
crouching together, after the transgression, amid the trees 
of the garden, and betrayed in their covert by a darting 
ray of light from heaven. Below this are Adam and Eve, 
driven by two angels in knight's armor through the Nor- 
man-Gothic door of a machicolated tower. Cain and Abel, 
quarreling beside an altar modeled after the pulpit of the 
Pisan Baptistery, are crowded into the background. 

The lack of room for the amplification of subjects and 
the artist's conceptions of these, led to a terrific **mix" 
upon the walls, which are literally loaded with frescoes. 
The entire Book of Genesis is illustrated upon the surface 
of the North wall, my photograph being a fair specimen 
of the style of the decorations. The partisans of Pietro 
di Paccio and of Buffalmacco claim for their respective 
masters the honor of the upper line of scenes. A Floren- 



IN FLORENCE AND PISA. 323 

tine, Benozzo Gozzoli, began with Noah's drunkenness, — 
a favorite theme in wine-growing countries— and ran the 
Jewish history down to the interview of Solomon and the 
Queen of Sheba. To him was awarded the distinction of 
a grave beneath the history of Joseph. 

The two German priests were going into convulsions of 
merriment before a monstrous spectacle of the Last Judg- 
ment and Hell, in which devils in green, red and yellow, 
are fighting over souls of equivocal reputation, with an- 
gels in blue-and-white liveries. The spirits in dispute 
have so dire a time between them that the terrors of the 
fate which befall them, when relinquished by the angels, 
must be materially mitigated by recollections of the es- 
caped horrors of dismemberment. The Inferno of Dante's 
countryman the artist, whose name is unknown, is a huge 
chaldron, crammed with heretics, apostates and Jews. The 
Chief Cook, his very horns a-tingle with delight, is ram- 
ming down some and stirring up others with a big pud- 
ding-stick. The priests laughed themselves double over 
our dumb disgust. Probably they credited the fidelity of 
the representation less than even we. 

The Baptistery is a four-storied rotunda. The lower 
story is set around with half-columns ; the second, with 
smaller whole pillars. Above this rise two tiers of pointed 
arches, the first row enclosing niches in which are half- 
length figures of saints. The upper arches are windows. 
A fine dome covers all. An octagonal font occupies the 
centre of the one vaulted chamber whose ceiling is the 
roof. It is raised by two steps from the floor, and is of 
white marble carved into patterns as delicate and intricate 
as the richest lace-work. The pulpit is scarcely less 
lovely, being adorned with bas-reliefs descriptive of the 
Life of our Lord from the Annunciation to the Last Judg- 
ment. It is a hexagon and there are five of these panels. 



324 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the sixth side opening upon the steps. The reticulated 
marble is singularly pure in quality and wrought into 
elaborateness of finish that has never been excelled. 

We were examining it and objurgating the ubiquitous 
Goth who has mutilated several of the finest figures, when 
the custodian, standing a little apart from us, sounded 
three notes in a sonorous baritone. Angel-voices caught 
them up and repeated them in every variety of harmonious 
intonation ; then, a loftier choir echoed the strains ; an- 
other and another, and still another until the rejoicings 
were lost in the heaven of heavens. 

We sank upon the steps of the font, and listened, as, in 
obedience to our wordless gesture, the man, once and 
again, gave the signal for the unearthly chorus. The 
voices were human, if human tones are ever perfect in 
sweetness, roundness and harmony, the transition of the 
theme from each band of singers to a higher, a complete 
illusion of the enchained senses. The responses, clear, 
tender, thrilling, invoked such images as we had seen in 
the Uflizi and Pi^ti galleries — concentric circles of cher- 
ubim and seraphim and rapturous redeemed ones, with 
uplifted faces and glad, eager eyes, reflecting the efful- 
gence of the Great White Throne and Him that sat 
thereon. 

Carlo Dolci knew how to paint such, and Raphael, and 
Fra Angelico. We had heard their quiring while looking 
upon the pictured canvas. We saiu them as we hearkened 
to the hymning that ascended to the stars. 




CHAPTER XXIII. 

" Beautiful Venice^ 

ROM Florence we went to Venice — eight days 
thereafter, to Bologna. 

We "did" Venice leisurely and with great 
delight. 

"The one place on the Continent that bored me!" I 
once heard a young lady declare at an American watering- 
place ; — a sentiment heartily seconded by several others. 
"You can do everything there in two days!" continued 
the critic. "After that, it is the stupidest old hole in crea- 
tion. I thought I should have died ! " 

Our friend. Miss M had been in Venice in Decem- 
ber, and described the blackened fronts of palaces dripping 
and streaming with rain ; low clouds excluding the sea- 
view ; lead-colored drains where poets had seen canals, and 
a depressing silence through which the gondolier's cry was 
like — " Bring out your dead ! " 

We were prepared to behold the ghost of a city, v/his- 
pering hollowly of a sublime Past ; — a monotonous suc- 
cession of ditches washing the slimy foundations of crumb- 
ling walls ; — almost the stillness and desolation of a desert. 
We left Florence on a hot day ; the railway train was 
crowded ; the long, dusty ride the least picturesque we 
had had in Italy. It was late in the afternoon when we 
alighted at the station-quay and saw our first gondola. 



326 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

It was wedged in with fifty others against the pier, so 
tightly that the manner of its extrication was a mystery. 
A bend of the gondolier's wrist did it all. He had held up 
his hand, and Caput had nodded. In a minute more he 
had brought his craft close to our feet, and balanced him- 
self by means of a long pole with a paddle at the end, 
while he raised his cap and offered his services. He had 
a family gondola, black as a hearse, a murderous-looking 
battle-axe, edge outward, fastened to the prow, and seats 
for six upon the cushions under a striped awning. Our 
luggage was quickly disengaged froni the confused mass 
discharged from the baggage-car, and stowed away in the 
bows ; we settled ourselves among the cushions and shot 
out into the canal out of sight and hearing of the noisy 
station. 

We were in Venice ! The Bride of the Sea ! Venice of 
the Doges — of the thousand isles — of the cloudy-winged 
thousand years ! Heat, dust, fatigue went out of our 
minds with the play of the cool air over our faces, the 
ripple of the salt-water under the keel of our boat. For 
this was also the Venice of our old-time poetic fancies — 
not the sad city photographed upon imagination by our 
friends' descriptions. The lofty palaces were ancient, 
blurred and seamed, but not ruinous — the smooth sunni- 
ness of the canals allured the eye on to the sea, the high- 
way and bulwark of the city. Groves of masts streaked 
it here and there, line and spar delicately defined against 
the flushing west. At longer intervals, government build- 
ings or warehouses sat blackly upon the breast of the 
water, the tide lapping their thresholds twice a day. Pur-' 
plish banks, lying close to the horizon in the hazy amber 
distances, were the lidi and murazzi — (sand hills and em- 
bankments) — protecting the Lagune from oceanic irrup- 
tions in tempestuous weather. All this was lost, presently. 



*' BEAUTIFUL VENICE." 32/ 

by the narrowing of the watery highway and closer line of 
buildings. The canals were dull tracks but for the tossing 
wake in the middle of each as our gondolier cleft a path 
with his long-armed sweep. His call before turning a 
corner was a guttural dissyllable, not easy of imitation. 
Poets — and Mark Twain — say gondoliers used to sing. 
We never heard them. Our Antonio, our first acquaint- 
ance, and our faithful boatman and guide until he de- 
posited us at the station, the morning of our departure — 
could not sing a note. Nor could any of his professional 
brethren, he said. 

"It was perhaps the sea-fogs that spoiled their throats. 
Or the exposure in all weathers, signore. The signora 
would observe that a gondolier's life was one of hardship, 
summer and winter. He had no breath to spare for sing- 
ing, Misericordia, not a great deal ! Nor heart for it 
when the sJ)osa and ba?nbini must have their mouths filled 
with food. KnA polenta dearer every season ! " 

We were Antonio's friends before we landed at the 
Hotel Luna, and had engaged him for a moonlight excur- 
sion upon the Grand Lagune that very night. We hired 
him for the day, next morning, and upon several other 
successive forenoons. 

For Venice did not bore us. The Piazza S. Marco was 
just around the corner from our quiet but excellent hotel 
—a matter of a hundred steps, perhaps, on dry land — and 
the Basilica of S. Marco — the attraction of Venice to us. 
Prancing over the great entrance are the four bronze 
horses, stolen from the triumphal arch of Nero by Trajan 
to adorn his ; from Trajan by Constantine for the new city 
of his founding and name ; from Constantine by Doge 
Dandolo for the Venetian Cathedral ; from Venice by 
Napoleon I. for the arch in the Place Carrousel, finally, 
restored by the Emperor Francis to St. Mark's. They are 



328 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Sturdy roadsters, with good " staying " qualities, if one 
may judge from their build and history, in no wise jaded 
by their travels and changes of climate, and look fresh, but 
not impatient for another start. 

The pigeons feed in the Piazza at two o'clock every day. 
It is " the thing " for strangers and native-born strollers to 
congregate here at that hour to witness the spectacle. 
About ten minutes before the bell strikes, the birds begin 
to assemble, crowding the roofs, eaves and window-sills of 
the surrounding buildings, preening and billing and cooing, 
with the freedom of privileged guests. At the stroke of 
the bell they rise, as one bird, into the air for a downward 
swoop upon' the scattered grain. The pavement is covered 
in an instant with a shifting mass of purple and gray plu- 
mage, and the noise of fluttering and murmuring, of peck- 
ing bills and clicking feet fills the square. A bevy of their 
remote ancestors brought, six hundred years ago, dispatches 
of such importance from the besieged island of Candia to 
Admiral Dandolo's fleet, that he sent the carrier-pigeons 
to Venice with the tidings of his success in taking the 
island, and the aid they had rendered him. They were put 
upon the retired list and fed at the public expense — they, 
their heirs and assigns forever. 

The best photographs — and the cheapest — in Italy are 
to be bought upon the Piazza San Marco. Florian's cele- 
brated ca/e is there, and countless shops for the sale of 
Venetian glass and beads — bijouterie of all sorts, and for 
the general robbery of travelers — the rule being to ask 
twice the value of each article when the customer is a 
foreigner, and to "come down" should the victim object 
to the proposed fleecing. 

The mosaic floor of San Marco billows like the Mer de 
Glace, having settled in many places. The decorations of 
facade and interior are oriental in character and color. 



'' BEAUTIFUL VENICE." 329 

St. Mark, after much post mortem travel, rests under the 
high altar. The altar-piece is of enameled silver and gold 
plate, fretted with jewels. A canopy of verde antique over- 
shadows the holy sepulchre. A second altar is behind the 
chief shrine. The canopy of this rests upon four columns, 
curiously twisted. The two forward ones are of alabaster, 
and semi-translucent. 

''Brought hither from Solomon's Temple after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem," affirmed our cicerone. 

"By whom?" 

The inevitable shrug and grimace, embodying civil 
surprise at the query, and personal irresponsibility for the 
tradition. 

'* Ah ! the signora can answer that as well as I who have 
never thought of it until now. Doubtless " — flashing up 
brilliantly — "San Marco, himself!. Who more likely?" 

The Battisterio is a gloomy chapel, and as little clean 
as it is bright. It has more the appearance of a lumber- 
chamber than a place of worship. But the relics are price- 
less — the rubbish unique. The bronze font, big enough 
for a carp-pond, dates from the i6th century, and is pre- 
sided over by John the Baptist. His head was cut off 
upon the stone one sees at the left of the altar. Above 
the latter is another bit of precious quartz or granite, from 
Mt. Tabor. St. Mark's has drawn heavily upon the Holy 
Land, if one-half the valuables stored within the Cathedral 
are genuine. Sturdy old Doge Dandolo, who pensioned 
the pigeons after the capitulation of Candia ; who, old and 
purblind, led the Venetians in the recapture of rebellious 
Zara, and to victory in the siege of Constantinople ; who 
accomplished what Pietro Doria, two hundred years later, 
boasted that he would do after humbling the arrogant Re- 
public, — bridled the bronze horses and led them whither- 
soever he would — is entombed in the Baptistery. 



330 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

With all of what some call its barbaric redundance of 
ornament and color, and the neglected richness that 
seems incompatible with the reputed veneration of the 
Venetians for their renowned Basilica, St. Mark's works 
powerfully upon those who are conversant with its his- 
tory and can appreciate the charm of its quaint magnifi- 
cence. Talk of " restoration " in this connection is a pro- 
ject to coat the dusky bloom of a Cleopatra with *' lily- 
white." 

One hundred-thirty-and-four years was this thousand- 
year-old temple in building, and, pending its erection, all 
homeward-bound vessels were compelled to bring some 
tribute to the rising structure. The five hundred columns 
of the facade are of rare marbles thus imported, princi- 
pally from the Orient. The wall between these is gorge- 
ous with mosaics — not frescos. The domes are begirt 
with a frontlet of pinnacles. Sultana of the Sea, to whom 
all kingdoms have paid tribute, she sits upon the shore in 
calm imperiousness befitting the regal estate confirmed 
by a decade of centuries. The hack of chisel, the corro- 
sion of acids here will be sacrilege. Yet they say it is 
ordained that she shall endure the outrage. They may 
smite, — they cannot belittle her. 

We disbelieved in the fragment of the true cross set in a 
silver column exhibited in the '' Treasury ; " were disposed 
to smile at the splinter, or chip, of St. John's frontal bone 
''adorning" an agate goblet. We shook our heads over 
St. Mark's Episcopal throne as we had at St. Peter's in 
Rome, and would not look at the crystal urn said to con- 
tain some of the Saviour's blood. Nor were we credulous 
as to the authenticity of the capitals brought from the 
Temple at Jerusalem crowning the pillars of the Entrance- 
Hall. 

But we always stayed our steps at the red porphyry slabs 



''BEAUTIFUL VENICE." 331 

embedded in the floor of the vestibule. Here, Frederic Bar- 
barossa, Emperor of Germany, and twice-crowned King of 
Italy, — once by Pope, again by the anti-pope of his own 
setting-up ; Conqueror of Poland and Lombardy ; the most 
accomplished, as he was the most heroic warrior in an era 
when heroism was knightly duty, — knelt to Pope Alexan- 
der III., at the pacific instance of Sebastiano Ziani, Doge 
of Venice. Ten years of excommunication ; the disastrous 
battle on Lake Como, desertion, treachery and disease had 
tired out, not quelled the haughty spirit. A twenty years' 
war, resulting in irrevocable defeat, probably wrought 
more potently upon reason and will than the Doge's argu- 
ments. His face was of a more burning red than the hair 
and beard that earned his nickname, as his knee touched 
the ground. 

Schiller makes Marie Stuart protest, after her betrayal 
into the like act of subserviency to Elizabeth, that she 
" knelt not to her^ but to God ! " The poet may have bor- 
rowed the equivocation from Barbarossa's kingly growl — 
" Non tibi — sed Fetro I " 

Alexander was pontiff, diplomatist and magnanimous. 

"£^ miVii, et Petrol'' he said, — raising the humbled 
monarch and giving him the kiss of peace. 

Ah ! the languorous noons, when we loitered among the 
shadows of the great Entrance-Hall, the " court of the 
Gentiles," "thinking it all over," the pigeons cooing and 
strutting on the hot stones outside, while St. Theodore; 
on his tall shaft, the Winged Lion of S. Marco on his, 
stood guard over the deserted Piazzetta, and the breeze 
came up past them from the Adriatic, the Bride of the 
Doges ! 

" In sig?mm veri per p etui que dominii ! " Thus ran the cere- 
mony of espousal. The King of all Italy, Vittorio Em- 
manuele, paid a flying visit to the royal palace on the 



332 LOITERINGS IN PLP:ASANT PATHS. 

Grand Canal while we were in the city, and the wedded 
Adriatic took the event as quietly as she had regarded the 
usurpation of Austrian and French conquerors. '' Per- 
petual" is a term of varied meanings in this world and 
life. 

Three stately cedar masts arise from ornamental pedes- 
tals before the church. They were set up in 1505, and the 
captured banners of Candia, the Morea and Cyprus i^sed 
to tiaunt there upon state festa-days while the doges ruled 
Venice and the sea. The flag of United Italy is raised 
upon each on Sabbaths and holidays. On a certain May 
morning, more than two-and-half centuries agone, other 
trees adorned the Piazza S. Marco. They had sprung up 
during the night, and each bore fruit, at the seeing of 
which men fled affrighted and women swooned. Many of 
the spectators had been guiltily cognizant of a conspiracy, 
headed by Spanish agents, to murder Doge, nobles and 
Council, when they should come to S. Marco on Ascen- 
sion-Day. The faces of the strangled men swinging, each 
from his gallows, revealed the awful truth that the Coun- 
cil of Ten had also known of the plot and marked the 
ringleaders. 

We walked across the Rialto ; stopped to cheapen Vene- 
tian glasses in the tiny shops crowding the streets lead- 
ing to and from the bridge ; bought here ripe, luscious 
oranges for a reasonable sum from one Jew, and paid 
three prices to another for a woven grass basket to hold 
the fruit. It is a Bowery neighborhood, at the best, from 
the cheap flashiness of which Antonio would withdraw his 
aristocratic patronage were he now a merchant of Venice. 
The Rialto is a steep, covered bridge, lighted by green 
Venetian blinds, that help to make it a common-looking 
structure. A bright-eyed Italian offered caged birds for 
sale on the pier where our Antonio and the gondola waited 



''BEAUTIFUL VENICE.'* 333 

for us. Upon a tray beside him were heaped white cuttle- 
fish bones for the use of the canaries. 

'' I do not want a bird," I said. " But I will buy some 
of those " — pointing to the cuttle-fish — " as a souvenir of 
the Rialto." 

He plucked off his tattered cap in a low bow. 

" But the signora should not pay for a souvenir of the 
Rialto ! I will give her as many as she wants — gladly." 

He pressed three of the largest upon me, and absolutely 
refused to accept so much as a centime in return. 

^'- Buono 77iano r' insisted Caput, holding out a coin. 

The Italian put his hands behind his back. " It is noth- 
ing ! Let it be a souvenir of the Rialto to the signora 
from a Venetian." 

" Unaccountable !" sighed Caput, as we dropped upon 
our cushions under the awning. 

'' Refreshing ! " said I, gazing back at the bird-vender 
until a turn in the canal hid him. 

He stands in the foreground of my mind-picture of the 
Rialto, — hung about from neck to waist-band with rude 
wooden cages of chirping linnets, canaries and the less ex- 
pensive goldfinch, the petted ''cardellino " of the lower 
classes. Their fondness for the lively little creature and 
his comparative worthlessness in the esteem of bird-fan- 
ciers gives meaning to Raphael's lovely *' Madonna del 
Cardellino," and interprets the tenderness in the eyes of 
the Divine Child as He arches His hand over the nestling 
offered him by John. 

S. Giovanni e Paolo ranks second to S. Marco in size, 
impressiveness of architecture and historical interest. It 
is the burial-place of the Doges. The last of their num- 
ber, Manini, sleeps in the more modern church of the 
Gesuiti (the Jesuits). '^ yEternitati suo Manini cineres" is 
his only epitaph. His predecessors repose pompously in 



334 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the old church, begun in the 13th century and completed 
in the 15 th. It feels and smells like an ocean cave. So 
strong is the briny dampness of flavor that one would 
hardly wonder to find sea-weed washed up in the chapel- 
•corners. Pietro Mocenigo, — as great in war as Tomaso 
Mocenigo was in statecraft and finance, has a liberal share 
of the right aisle. Fifteen statues surround the mausole- 
um constructed ''from the spoils of his enemies." In the 
grave he could not relax his hold upon their throats. 

'' The only horses in Venice ! " said a friend to me, once, 
in showing a photograph of St. Mark's " team." 

He had been twice to Venice, but he must have skipped 
SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Whether or not the Doges were, in 
life, adepts in noble horsemanship, they are addicted to 
equestrian statues after death. Very high amid the pre- 
vailing dampness, stand and paw their marble coursers on 
the lids of sarcophagi, as stamping to arouse their slum- 
bering masters, and upon wall-shelves and niches. The 
Chapel of the Rosary, founded in 15 71, as a thank-offering 
of the Republic for the victory of Lepanto, is now a 
smoke-blackened shell, — the valuable contents, including 
the original of Titian's " Death of St. Petrus, Martyr," 
having been destroyed by fire in 1868. 

The pictured wealth of Venice had not been conceived 
of by us prior to this visit. Fresh from Florentine gal- 
leries as we were, our day in the Accademia delle Belle 
Arti was a banquet enjoyed the more because it was unex- 
pected. Our surprise was the result of a want of reflection, 
since we knew that Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Paul 
Veronese were Venetians. Still, as men and prophets 
go, that was hardly a reason why we should behold their 
master-pieces in honored places in their native, or adopted 
city. Titian's '* Presentation of Mary in the Temple," 
and ''John the Baptist in the Wilderness," Bonifazio's 



"BEAUTIFUL VENICE." 335 

*' Banquet of Dives," "Jesus in the House of Levi " by 
Paul Veronese — (how well we all know artists and subjects 
through the "blessed sun-pictures," and engravings!) are 
in the Academy of Fine Arts, a suppressed monastery of 
modest dimensions and appearance, devoted now to better 
uses than of yore. 

The Bridge of Sighs is another covered bridge, but with 
a level floor and grated, instead of shuttered windows. A 
row of gargoyles grin upon the lower arch. An allegorical 
figure which, we guessed, was St. Mark, occupies the centre 
of the frieze, — a lion on each hand. The Bridge looks 
like a place accursed. We did not quite like to pass under 
it. It spans a narrow canal, shut in from the sunshine by 
the Palace of the Doges on one side, a dingy, darksome 
prison on the other. The water is inky-black in their 
shadow. A chill wind draws through the passage on the 
hottest day. The last glimpse of the world framed by the 
barred windows, could not have heightened the hardship 
of leaving it. The prisons are empty dungeons, the walls 
exuding cold sweats ; badly-lighted and worse-ventilated. 
There is nothing in them to recompense one for the dis- 
comfort and depression of a visit. 

We entered the Palace of the Doges by the Giant's 
Staircase : — 

" The gory head rolled down the Giant's stairs." 

Of course we quoted the line ; knowing the while, that 
Marino Falieri's head nor foot ever touched the stately 
flight. He was beheaded, at eighty years of age, at the 
top of another staircase the site of which is occupied by 
this. We saw the place where his name should be in the 
Great Hall oi the Doges. The walls are covered with 
miles of historical canvas. Tintoretto's gigantic picture, 
— said to be the largest oil-painting in the world — of 



33^ LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

"Paradise" fills one end of the chamber. On the other 
sides are scenes from the history of the Crusades, — notably 
of the Venetians' participation in the Holy Wars. The 
portraits of the Doges are upon the frieze close to the 
ceiling. We gave none a second glance. The whole pro- 
cession of ermine and purple mantles and peaked beards 
did not interest us one-hundredth part as much as did a 
sable blank directly over the coronation of Baldwin of 
Flanders by one of the Dandolos. 

^'^ Hie est locus Marino Falieri^ decapitati pro criminibus.^^ 

Another Doge, whose craft, or inoffensiveness kept his 
head upon his shoulders, takes up the indefinite series be- 
yond the accusing tablet. 

Many of the historical pictures are by noted artists. Paul 
Veronese and his pupils appear most prominently in the 
catalogue, although Tintoretto and Bassano did their part, 
under princely patronage, toward commemorating the 
glories, civic, ecclesiastic, and naval, of Venice. So much 
Doge and Pope drove us from the field of observation by 
the time we had spent an hour in the immense room. The 
Voting Hall, visited next, afforded neither change nor re- 
lief. Thirty-nine Doges could not be forced into the 
Council Chamber. The faithful Venetians have made a 
frieze of them, also, at the end of which we read aloud and 
thankfully, the name of Manini. We had seen his tomb, 
and remembered him as the last of the worthy old gentle- 
men. Here we read the history of the Republic again on 
ceiling and walls, except where a '* Last Judgment " — per- 
tinent, but not complimentary — over the entrance, broke 
the line of battle, which was, invariably, Venetian vic- 
tory. 

The notorious Bocca di Leone is a slit by the side of a 



'' BEAUTIFUL VENICE. 337 

door in a second-story room. We were passing it, without 
notice, when tlie guide pointed it out. It is no larger than 
the " slide " in a post-office door, and like it in shape. If 
it could give breath to all the secrets it swallowed when 
the Bridge of Sighs was a populous pathway to the dun- 
geons that meant death ; when nocturnal hangings, with 
no public preamble of trial or sentence, were legal execu- 
tions — the little hole in the wall would be as the mouth — 
not of the lion — but of hell ! 

This Palace, whose foundations were laid A. D. 800, is a 
superb fabric. It was finished in the fourteenth century. 
It faces the sea on one side, upon another the Piazzetta, 
where St. Theodore stands aloft, shield and spear in hand, 
the crocodile under his feet, and the Winged Lion holds 
open the Book of the Gospels with his paw. A double 
colonnade of more than a hundred columns, runs around 
both of these sides. We counted carefully from the main 
entrance to the ninth and tenth pillars. They are of rich 
red marble, and between them, in the prosperous days of 
the Republic, stood the herald while he cried aloud the 
sentences of death just decreed in the Great Hall. The 
Doges were crowned upon the upper landing of the Giant's 
Staircase. An inner stairway is known as the Scalad'Oro, 
or Golden Stairs, and in the same Republican age, none 
could tread it who were not registered among the nobility. 
We saw the table around which convened the Council of 
Ten, — perhaps the same over which the Spanish conspiracy 
was discussed, and on which the death-warrants were 
penned. 

Then we rejoined patient Antonio at the foot of the 
Piazzetta, and were rowed — or spirited — by winding ways, 
to the beautiful church of the Franciscans, to see Canova's 
monument. It was erected five years after his death, from 
his own design for Titian's tomb. The artist within whose 
15 



338 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

soul the exquisite conception grew into form should rest 
in this mausoleum and none other. The door of the pyra- 
midal tomb is pushed open by a bending figure, (life-size,) 
in trailing weeds, who looks longingly, yet fearfully, into 
the inner darkness. She is followed up the short flight of 
steps by a procession of mourners, — Poetry, and Sculpture, 
and Painting, among them, — bearing laurels and funereal 
emblems. Titian's monument, in another aisle, is a taste- 
less monstrosity, in comparison with this ** rejected " de- 
sign. 

The Franciscan Monastery adjoining the church, con- 
tains the archives of Venice since 883. There are not less 
than fourteen 7nillion documents in the collection. So 
boast the custodians. Three hundred rooms are appro- 
priated for their accommodation. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

Bologna, 

HAVE recorded the Traveled American girl's ex- 
perience in the Venice we mourned at leaving 
after eight days' sojourn. In the parlor of the 
Hotel Brun, in Bologna, we met the Average Briton, a 
spinster of linguistic and botanical tastes — artistic too, as 
presently appeared — who was *' stopping overnight," in 
the city. 

'* Where there's nothing to be seen, me dear," she asserted 
to a countrywoman of her own, in our hearing, '•'• unless 
one has a fondness for sausage. You remarked that they 
made a course of Bologna sausage at the dinner-table. 
Ex'tror'nary — was it not ? We thought it quite nasty. But 
Bologna is a filthy old town — not a show-place at all. No- 
body stops here unless obliged to do so. We take the 
early train for Venice. Ah ! there is a wealth of art 
there ! " 

"Will you walk ? " asked Caput of me, so abruptly that 
the A. B. lifted her eye-glass at him. 

The sidewalks are arcades, protected from sun and rain 
by roofs supported upon arches and pillars. The shops 
were still open ; the pavements alive with strollers and 
purchasers. A cleanly, wide-awake city it looked to be, 
even by night, and nowhere that we saw, dull or ''filthy." 

'* I lose my patience at the contradiction of fools ! " 
ejaculated my escort, unnecessarily, his demeanor having 
already spoken for him. '' That of sinners is a bagatelle 



340 LOITERINGS IX PLEASANT TATIIS. 

compared with it. I Avill take you to-morrow, first to the 
University of Bologna, one of the oldest institutions of 
learning extant. A University founded more than seven 
hundred and fifty years ago, — if not, as some declare, estab- 
lished by Theodosius in 425, and subsequently restored by 
Charlemagne. There were often, as late as the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, eight, nine, ten thousand stu- 
dents in attendance at once in the various departments, es- 
pecially in the law-schools taught by the ablest jurists of 
Europe. In anatomical research and discoveries, the medi- 
cal department gained almost equal fame. Galvani was a 
professor here, and from the Bolognese University the 
knowledge of galvanism spread over the civilized world. 
You should be proud to know that there were women-pro- 
fessors in this faculty centuries before 'advanced ideas,' 
and the 'co-education of the sexes,' became fashionable 
jargon in America." 

" I have heard of Novella d'Andrea, the Hypatia of the 
fourteenth century — fabled to have been so beautiful 
that she was obliged to sit behind a screen when she 
lectured." 

" Upon Canon Law! The story is true. Inerius intro- 
duced here the study of Roman law, and Novella was its 
able and eloquent expounder. Laura Bassi received the 
degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University about 
1700. She was Professor of Mathematics and Physical 
Science. Madame Manzolini, in the same century, taught 
Anatomy. Clotilda Tambroni, Professor of Greek, died 
in 1S17. The character of the branches studied and taught 
by them is the most remarkable thing. Belles-lettres and 
modern languages would seem more natural. 

" Bologna has produced nothing worthy of note except 
sausages ! Yet the king of linguists, Mezzofanti, was, 
likewise, a professor in this University. Eight popes were 



\ 



BOLOGNA. 341 

born in Bologna, Benedict XIV. among them, and other 
men far more eminent in their day and in ours, such as 
Manfredi and Aldobrandini. In the Bolognese Accademia 
delle Belle Arti are the very best paintings of a school 
that owes its name to the city. Had that woman ever 
heard of Francesca Francia, Guido Reni, Domenichino, or 
the three Caracci ? Or, of the museum of Etruscan curios- 
ities in the University Buildings ? Of the two Leaning 
Towers of Bologna ? Or, the Campo Santo ? Sausage, 
forsooth ! I hate a fool ! " 

*' So did Mr. F's aunt ! " said I, at this climax. We both 
laughed, and the Average Briton was dismissed for pleas- 
anter topics. 

I was almost afraid, after this philippic, to hint that the 
Leaning Towers, seen by the morrow's light, were unfor- 
tunately like two overgrown factory chimneys, canting 
tipsily to one side. They are of grimy brick, devoid of 
ornament, and seven hundred and seventy years old. 
Ugly, unfinished and useless, they impart a rakish, dissi- 
pated air to an otherwise respectable quarter. The junior 
of the twain, and the shorter, by one hundred and thirty- 
four feet, exceeds the greater in obliquity. A century 
since, its inclination was eight feet southward, three feet 
eastward, and it is said to have persisted in its downward 
tendency during that hundred years. Its taller mate leans 
but three feet out of the perpendicular. 

Dante honors the shorter and more ungainly tower, by 
likening to it Antaeus, who was but a son of the clod him- 
self. Prima found the passage in the Inferno, and read it 

to us : 

*' Qual pare a riguardar la Carisenda 
Sotto'l chinato, quando un nuvol vada 
Sovr' essa si, ch'ella in contrario penda ; 
Tal parve Anteo a me, che stava a bada 
Di vederlo cliLnare : — " 



342 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

A less mellifluous rhyme arose to English-speaking lips 
in surveying the incomplete shaft : 

** If I was so soon done for, 
I wonder what I was begun for." 



When the unstable foundations became an admitted fact, 
why were not the Asinelli and Garisenda torn down and 
built upon firmer ground, or the materials otherwise 
appropriated ? 

We were bound for the University, having but made a 
detour in our drive thither, to see what the guide-books 
catalogued as the ''most singular structures in Bologna" 
— the drunken towers. 

The buildings occupied by the famous school of learning 
are comparatively modern, and were, until 1803, the palace 
of the Cellesi, a noble family of Bologna. The library of 
one hundred thousand volumes is arranged in an extensive 
suite of rooms, frescoed, as are some of the corridors, 
with the coats of arms of former students in the Uni- 
versity. 

''What if a student should not have a family escutch- 
eon ? " we suggested to our guide. 

The objection was as intelligible, w^e saw, at once, as if 
we had asked, " Must every student have a head of his 
own in order to matriculate here ? " 

While we speculated in our own vernacular as to the 
number of genuine heraldic emblems four or five hundred 
American college-boys could collect at such a demand 
from their Alma Mater, and the guide stood by, puzzled 
and obsequious, we were accosted in excellent English 
by a gentleman who had entered from another room. 

" Can I be of service to you ? We are proud of our 
University and happy to show it to strangers." 



BOLOGNA. 343 

It was Sig. Giovanni Szedilo, of whose grammar of 
Egyptian hieroglyphics we afterward heard much, and 
for the next three hours, he acted as host and inter- 
preter. 

The Bolognese Street of Tombs has been uncovered 
within a decade. It was disclosed by that searcher of 
depths and bringer of hidden things to light — a railway 
cutting. The bared sepulchres gave up w^onderful trea- 
sures, and the ancient University, as next of age in the 
region, became their keeper. In one room of the museum 
are large glass cases fastened to the floor, by brickwork, I 
think. In these lay the exhumed Etruscan skeletons 
amid their native dust. The removal of the graves with 
their tenants was so skillfully effected that we saw them 
exactly as they had lain in the ground. Sons of Anak all 
— and daughters as well. The women were six feet in 
length and grandly proportioned. Tarnished bracelets, 
from which the gems had dropped, encircled the fleshless 
wrists, and a tiara had slipped from the brow of one with 
the gentle mouldering back to ashes. ''Can a maid for- 
get her ornaments ? " The Etruscans believed that she 
would not be content in the next world — wherever they 
located it — without them. In the hand of each person lay 
the small coin that was to pay the Etruscan Charon for the 
soul's passage over the dark river. Always a river to 
Pagan and to Christian, and too deep for man's fording ! 
Beside the skeleton of a little girl was a tray set out with 
a doll's tea-set, as we would call it, pretty little vessels of 
Etruscan ware, that were a dainty prize of themselves, in a 
" collector's " eyes. We would not have touched them had 
they been exposed to manual examination — although the 
craze for antique pottery had possessed us for many years. 
The outstretching of the small arm, the pointing fingers 
in the direction of the plaything were a sufficient guard. 



344 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Other toys were laid away with other children ; now and 
then, a vase, or a cup of choicer ware, beside an adult. 

*' Supposed to be two thousand years old ! " said our 
erudite guide. '' We are assisted materially in our com- 
putation of dates by the articles buried with them." 

A running lecture upon Etruscan pottery ensued, illus- 
trated by the large and perfectl)^-assorted collection in the 
museum. There were five different and well-defined 
periods in the history of the art, we learned, and how to 
discern the features of each. We marked its rise and 
decline from the earthenware pot, roughly engraved and 
rudely colored, and the dark, or black jug, with slightly 
raised and more graceful designs upon a smooth surface — 
to the elegant forms of chalice and vase, embellished 
with groups of allegorical figures, and painted tales of 
love and war. These declined in beauty and finish until, 
about fifty years before the Christian era, all traces of the 
renowned manufacture were lost. 

*^ There has not been a bit of real Etruscan ware made 
since that time," reiterated the connoisseur, accentuating 
the dictum by tapping gently upon the specimen in his 
hand, and smiling into our interested faces. *' Who asserts 
the contrary, lies ! " yet more suavely. 

He blew invisible dust from the precious vase; replaced 
it tenderly upon its shelf, and passed on to Egyptian mum- 
mies with the easy sociability of a contemporary. There 
are papyrii by the score in the archives of the University, 
and four thousand ancient MSS. in the ''new" buildings 
which are *' all print " to him. He rendered the long- 
winded hieroglyphical inscriptions upon sarcophagus and 
tablet as fluently as we would the news summary of Herald, 
Tribune or Times. A pleasant, gracious gentleman he 
proved to be withal. His coiutesy to the party of 
strangers whose sole recommendation to his hospitality 



BOLOGNA. 345 

was their strangerhood, is held by them in grateful re- 
membrance. 

S. Petronio, the largest church in Bologna, is, like the 
Leaning Towers, unfinished, although begun in the four- 
teenth century. The Emperor Charles V. was crowned 
here. A vast, hideous barn without, it yet holds some 
valuables that well repay the trouble of inspection. The 
marble screens of the chapels; the inlaid and carved stalls, 
of a clear, dark brown with age; old stained glass that 
shames the gaudiness of later art; one or two fine groups 
of sculpture, and a very few good paintings enrich the 
interior. The astronomer Cassini drew, in 1653, the 
meridian-line upon the pavement of one of the aisles. 
Much of the stained glass is from the hand of the cele- 
brated Jacob of Ulm. About the church is a bare, paved 
space, devoid of ornament or enclosure, that adds to the 
dreariness of the structure. 

Guido Reni is"l3uried in S. Domenico, a smaller edifice, 
enshrining the remains of its patron saint. The kneeling 
angel on one side of his tomb, and the figure of St. Petro- 
nious (a new worthy to us) upon the other, are by Michael 
Angelo. Guido Reni painted St. Dominic's transfiguration 
within the dome, and, with one of the Caracci, frescoed 
the Chapel of the Rosary on the left. In the choir is the 
monument of King Enzio. 

We had already seen the house in which he was con- 
fined for twenty-two years after the disastrous fight of Fas- 
salta. He was the son of the Emperor Frederic II., and 
great-grandson of Barbarossa. Like his auburn-haired 
ancestor, Frederic II. waged war for twenty years with the 
Papal See, the Bolognese espousing the cause of the latter, 
and that of the Guelphs. Euzio's gift from his father of 
the Kingdom of Sardinia was the pretext of the Pope's 
second bull of excommunication against the Emperor, 
15* 



34^ LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and the cause of the war which resulted for the brave 
young Prince in life-long captivity. His incarceration 
was rather the honorable detention of a prisoner-of-state 
than penal confinement. The Palazzo del Podesta was a 
luxurious home. Its Great Hall still bears his name. It 
was not in this audience-chamber that he received the 
visits of the most beautiful woman in Bologna, Lucia Ven- 
dagoli, whom he secretly married. Euzio was, at the time 
of his capture, but twenty-five years of age. At seventeen, 
he had fought his first battle under his father's eye ; at 
nineteen, was King of Sardinia ; at twenty, was appointed 
Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial forces. To the 
bravery and knightly accomplishments of his illustrious 
great-grandfather, he united personal beauty and grace 
that made him irresistible to the fair patrician. Her pas- 
sion for him and her wifely devotion are the theme of 
numberless ballads and romances, and were the solace of 
an existence that must else have been insupportable to the 
caged eagle. 

From this union sprang the powerful family of the Ben- 
tivogli who carried on the hereditary feud with the Pope 
until the latter sued for peace and alliance. The Benti- 
vogli were a stirring race and kept Bologna in hot water 
for as many decades as their founder passed years in the 
palatial prison. The staircase up which Lucia stole to 
meet her royal lover ; the apartments in which their inter- 
views were held, are still pointed out, although the palace 
is now a city hall where records are made and preserved. 

We drove out to the Campo Santo upon the loveliest of 
June afternoons, passing, within the town-walls, the house 
of Rossini, built under his own eye, and the more modest 
abodes of Guercino and Guido Reni. The frescoes of this 
last are from the master's brush, but we had not time to 
go in to look at them. '^ Something must be crowded 



BOLOGNA. 347 

out " — even in Bologna. For example, we visited neither 
soap nor sausage-factory. 

The drives in the environs of the city are extremely 
beautiful, the roads good. The Campo Santo was, until 
the beginning of this century, a Carthusian Monastery. 
The grounds are entered through a gate in walls enclosing 
church, cloisters and arcades, with a level space literally 
floored with grave-stones. In this, the common burying- 
ground, were re-interred the greater part of the bones un- 
earthed by the railway excavations through the Street of 
Tombs. Etruscans, Guelphs, Ghibellines and modern Bo- 
lognese sleep amicably and compactly together. Grass and 
purple clover spring up between the horizontal stones, and 
the roses in the path-borders load the air with sweetness. 
The distinguished dead have monuments in the arcades, — 
long corridors, filled with single statues and groups, usually 
admirable in design and workmanship. The vaults of the 
nobility are here, wealth combining with affection to set 
fitting tributes above the beloved and departed. There 
may be, also, a vying of wealth with wealth in the elaborate 
sculpture and multiplication of figures. I did not think 
of this in pausing at a father's tomb on which stood up- 
right a handsome lad of thirteen or thereabouts, the 
mother's only surviving child. She had bowed upon his 
shoulder and buried her face in his neck in an agony of 
desolation, clinging to him as to earth's last hope. The 
boy's head was erect, and his arm encircled the drooping 
form. He would play the man-protector, but his eyes 
were full, and the pouting underlip was held firm by the 
tightened line of the upper. The careful finish of the 
details of hair and dress did not detract from the pathos 
of the group. 

"That is not Art!" objected Prima, made critical by 
Roman art lectures and illustrative galleries. 



348 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

*' No ! " I assented. " It is Nature ! " 

The monument of Laetitia Murat Pepoli, Napoleon's 
niece, is here, and a matchless statue of King Murat in full 
uniform, sword in hand, one advanced foot upon a piece 
of ordnance. Torn banners, a crown and other trophies 
of victorious generalship, bestrew the ground. The pose 
of head, the military carriage, the contained strength of 
the countenance betoken the master of men and of him- 
self. 

A monument representing Christ, attended by angels 
floating in the air, is a surprisingly lovely bit of ^'artistic 
trickery." 

Clotilda Tambroni is buried here, and in the cloisters 
are the busts of men distinguished in science and in letters, 
Mezzofanti and Galvani among them. When our erudite 
Sig. Giovanni seeks Etrurians and Egyptians in the world 
of shades, the Bolognese will set up his marble present- 
ment beside his peers. 

Among the ''crowded outs" of Bologna was 7wt the Ac- 
cademia delle Belle Arti. We almost pitied — under the 
mollifying and refining influences of our stay within its 
courts, — the Average British Spinster who had taken the 
early train for Venice and the " wealth of art t/iere." Baede- 
ker and his foUow^ers designate as the "gem of the collec- 
tion " Raphael's picture of S. Caecilia's trance while angels 
discourse heavenly music above her head. One demurs 
at the decision in beholding, in the same gallery. Guide 
Reni's *' Crucifixion," his '' Victorious Samson " and 
'* Slaughter of the Innocents ; " Domenichino's " Martyrs," 
with supplicating saints and angels in the upper part ; the 
best works of the Caracci and Francesca Francia ; Peru- 
ginos — for those who like them ; more pleasing pictures 
from Guercino, the Sirani, and a host of artists of less 
note. 



BOLOGNA. 349 

We were to leave the uninteresting city at half-past 
twelve, the third day after our arrival. The carriages 
stood at the door of the hotel, piled with luggage, and the 
party, with one exception, were in their places half an 
hour before the moment of the train's departure for Milan. 
Landlord, waiters, and facchini were paid, vehicles en- 
gaged and trunks brought down before Caput's disappear- 
ance. Fifteen minutes of tolerably patient waiting ended 
in inquiries among ourselves as to who had seen him last 
and where. He had stepped around into the next street, 
at eleven o'clock, we were assured by the proprietor. He 
would be back very soon. Five restless minutes more, 
and the urbane host ventured to ask if Monsieur had the 
''habitude" of losing trains. It was the custom of some 
travelers. And what matter ? It was an easy affair to un- 
load and dismiss the carriages and return to our apart- 
ments. There were still unvisited attractions in Bologna. 
His smiles grew broader, our anxiety more active as two, 
three, four minutes slipped by. The fifth was upon us 
when a hot and hurrying figure dashed up the street ; 
sprang into the foremost carriage, and we drove off at a 
gallop to the station. There, we had a breathless rush, as 
might have been expected, — a scramble for tickets and 
seats. It was impossible to secure a compartment for our 
party. The lunch-basket was in one carriage ; the fruit- 
basket in another. Nobody had her own satchel or books. 
The Invaluable and Boy were separated by four compart- 
ments from always-foreboding Mamma. We were fifty 
miles from the hills of Bologna, and our eyes already sated 
w^th the watery flats, rice-fields and broom-stick poplars 
of Lombardy before we found one another, our respective 
belongings, — and our tempers. 

The cause of the delay and consequent turmoil main- 
tained his equanimity, as was meet. For, had he not had 



350 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

another hour in the University ? Did he not offer me, as 
a peace-gift, photographs of the portraits of the quintette 
of Lady-professors of Bologna, including the perilously- 
fair Novella ? Was he not brimming and bubbling over 
with priceless information imparted by the benevolent 
librarian, and burning benevolently to make us partakers 
of his knowledge ? And, securely buttoned in the breast- 
pocket of his traveling-coat, did he not possess the Gram- 
mar of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, written in flowing Italian 
by Sig. Giovanni Szedilo ? 




CHAPTER XXV. 

'' Non e Possibile!'' 

ON e possibile!'' said Boy, turning his flushed face 
to the pillow, and away from me. 

** But it is arrow-root jelly, dear ! Try to eat a 
little ! " 

^'' Non e possibile ! '' murmured the little fellow, dreamily, 
and fell into a feverish doze. 

We were detained ten days in Milan, waiting for letters 
and to collect luggage. Coolness was not to be had in the 
city except in the Cathedral, and among the streams, 
fountains and trees of the Public Gardens. The older 
members of the party haunted the former place, exploring 
every part from the private crypt where Carlo Borromeo 
lies, like a shriveled black walnut, in his casket of rock 
crystal, enwrapped in cloth-of-gold ; a jeweled mitre upon 
his head, a cross of emerald and diamonds over his breast ; 
— four million francs represented in sarcophagus and or- 
naments, while beggars swarm upon the church-steps ; — 
to the ascent ''from glory to glory," of the hundred-pin- 
nacled roof. Boy and his devoted attendant frequented 
the Gardens — ''the Publics," as he called them, as they 
had what he had named the " Bobbolos " in Florence. 
We believed him as safe as happy there. 

Yet, when he drooped and sickened within a few days 
after our arrival at Cadenabbia on Lake Como, we feared 



352 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

lest malaria, the pest of Milan, had lurked in the shaded 
glens, and on the brink of the ponds where he used to 
feed the swans. The malady proved to be measles, con- 
tracted in Lombardy or from some Cadenabbian playmate. 
It was an easy matter to quarantine our apartments in the 
quiet hotel we had chosen because we could be better ac- 
commodated, as a family, there, than at the larger one 
lower down the lake. Three of our rooms on the second- 
floor were en suite. We removed the patient into the 
farthest of these, a cool, corner bed-room fronting the 
water, and the Invaluable had entire charge of it. Hap- 
pily, the only other children in the house were two baby- 
girls whose parents were Americans, but now resident in 
Florence. I went immediately to the mother, with the 
truth, when the eruption appeared. She was a sensible 
woman, and a thorough lady. 

<' My girls must have the disease at some time," she said. 
*' As well now as later. Do not distress yourself." 

Her husband, as considerate of us and as philosophical 
for their little ones, added some valuable advice to his re- 
assurances, — counsel I am glad to transmit to others who 
may require the warning. 

"Say nothing to the Padrotie of the nature of Boy's ail- 
ment. He will, probably, demand a large sum for the 
damage done his hotel by the rumor of the infectious dis- 
ease. That is a favorite * dodge.' Travelers must pay for 
the luxury of illness in a country where there are fewer 
appliances for the comfort of invalids than anywhere else 
in Christendom." 

We thanked him for his friendly caution, and followed 
his directions so faithfully that, to this day, neither land- 
lord nor domestic suspects the harm they sustained 
through our residence with them. Boy had the measles, 
as he does everything, with all his might. He could 



**NON t POSSIBILE." 353 

neither taste nor smell, and the sight of food was odious. 
The room was shaded to densest twilight while the sun 
was above the horizon, to spare the weak eyes. The 
gentlest talk and softest songs were required to calm the 
unrest of fever. When his mind wandered, as it often 
did, he would speak nothing but Italian, fancying, gen- 
erally, that he was talking with the padrone and his wife 
who had petted him abundantly before his illness. Hence, 
the '''• non e possibiW that had refused his supper. 

Seeing him sink into more quiet sleep than he had en- 
joyed for several days, I set down the rejected cup ; stole 
to the window and unbolted a shutter. The sunny day 
was passing away, but the lake was a-glow with its fare- 
well. In the garden, separating the hotel from the shore, 
was a group of American friends who had arrived from 
Milan two days before. Three or four girls, looking de- 
lightfully cool and home-like in their muslin dresses, sat 
upon low chairs with their fancy-work. The gentlemen 
wore loose coats and straw hats. The coziness of content, 
— the reposefulness expressed in attitude and demeanor, 
were in just harmony with hour and scene. One was 
reading aloud, and while I looked, the words formed 
themselves clearly upon my ear. They had talked at din- 
ner, of ** Kismet," then a new sensation in literary circles. 
But the tuneful measures delivered by the fine voice of 
the reader were from no modern novel or other ephemeral 
page :— 

" By Sommariva's garden -gate 

I make the marble stairs niy seat. 
And hear the water, as I wait, 

Lapping the steps beneath my feet. 

The undulation sinks and swells 

Along the stony parapets ; 
And, far away the floating bells 

Tinkle upon the fisher's nets. 



354 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Silent and slow, by tower and town, 

The freighted barges come and go, 
Their pendent shadows gliding down 

By town and tower submerged below. 

The hills sweep upward from the shore, 

With villas, scattered, one by one, 
Upon their wooded spurs, and lower, 

Bellaggio, blazing in the sun. 

And, dimly seen, a tangled mass 

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, 

Stands, beckoning up the Stetvio Pass, 
Varenna, with its white cascade. 

I ask myself — Is this a dream ? 

Will it all vanish into air ? 
Is there a land of such supreme 

And perfect beauty anywhere? 

Sweet vision ! do not fade away ; 

Linger until my heart shall take 
Into itself the summer day 

And all the beauty of the lake ! '* 

I do not apologize for the long quotation. I ofifer it as 
a pendant to Buchanan Read's '' Drifting," that brings 
before our closed eyes the unrivaled loveliness of the 
**Vesuvian Bay." Both are inspired— I use the term 
reverently — v^ord-paintings. Both excite within the soul 
of him who has seen Naples from Posilipo and Como from 
Cadenabbia, something of the sweet madness of poetic 
dreaming. It is all before us again with the melodious 
movement of the verse — even to such realistic touches as 

the trailing hand — 

** Over the rail. 
Within the shadow of the sail " — 

and the tinkle of the floating bells that guide the fisher- 
man by night to his spread net. 



'*NON E POSSIBILE." 355 

I believe Como disappoints nobod3^ Claude Melnotte's 
description of his ideal castle upon its banks reads like a 
fairy-story. Recalled at Cadenabbia or Bellaggio, it may 
be aptly likened to a cleverly-painted drop-curtain. 

I had been shut up in the darkened room all day ; was 
weary of body, and if not actually anxious, sympathized so 
earnestly with the little sufferer that my heart was as sore 
as my nerves were worn. The view — the perfumed air ; 
the on-coming of an evening fairer than the day ; the 
home-comfortableness of the garden-party ; the feeling and 
music of the voice rendering the poem, — perhaps, most of 
all the poem itself, loved and familiar as it was — were 
soothing and cordial for sleeplessness, fatigue and the 
mother's heart pain. I know no other ache that so surely 
and soon drains dry the fountain of life and strength as 
the nameless, terrible " goneness " and sinking I have thus 
characterized. 

The moon arose before the Iris hues faded out from the 
water. The young people filled two boats and floated 
away upon the silvery track laid smoothly and broadly 
from shore to shore. A band was playing at the Hotel 
Bellevue, half-a-mile away, and the lake lay still, as listen- 
ing. In the pauses of the music the tinkling of the tiny 
bells on the nets ; the far-oif murmur of happy voices, and 
the yet fainter song of nightingales in the chestnut-grove 
behind the house filled up the silence. From the richly- 
wooded hills and clustering villas at the lower end of the 
lake, my eyes roved along the loftier crests of the opposite 
heights to the snow-line of the Bernese Alps filling the 
horizon to my left. We had meant to give but one week 
to Como, tempting as it was. These seven days were to 
have been a breathing space after Milanese heats before 
we essayed the St. Gothard Pass— the gate of Switzerland. 
A mighty gate and a magnificent, and, up to June loth, 



356 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

locked fast against us. The band of white radiance, gleam- 
ing in the moonlight, like the highway of the blessed ones 
from earth to heaven, had been a stern ^^ non e, possibile ! " 
to our progress before Boy fell ill. A party had passed 
the barrier on the 7 th, but at the cost of great suffering 
and peril to the invalid of their company, — a report duly 
conveyed to us, coupled w^th a warning against similar 
temerity. Now — upon the 20th — we were a fixed fact, for 
three weeks, at the least, and had taken our measures 
accordingly. Matters might have been far worse. For 
instance, had the civil padrone surmised the character of 

Boy's ''feverish attack," or the dear babies B caught 

it from him. We were granted time to write up note-books, 
arrange photographs and herbarium-albums, and bring up 
long arrears of correspondence. Had we pressed on over 
the mountain-wall at the appointed date we should have 
missed the reunion with the party of eight from lower 
Italy from whose companionship we were drawing refresh- 
ment and sincerest pleasure. 

In the center of one leaf of my floral album — right oppo- 
site a view of Bellagio and Villa Serbelloni, with the 
rampart of snow-capped hills rising back of it into the 
clouds, the shining mirror before it repeating white walls 
and dark woods, olive-terraces and rose-gardens, — is a 
single pressed blossom. It is five-petaled, gold-colored ; 
the pistil of deepest orange protected by a thicket of 
amber floss. The leaves are long, stiff, and were glossy, 
set in pairs, the one against the other on a brown, woody 
stem. It grew in the grounds of the Villa Carlotta. The 
spray of many fountains kept the foliage green, w^hen 
Bellaggio blazed most fiercely in the June suns, and the 
lime-walks on the Cadenabbia side were deserted. Bos- 
cages of myrtle, of lemon-trees and citron-aloe, honey- 
suckles, jasmine and magnolias shadowed the alleys. 



*'NON E POSSIBILE." 357 

Calla lilies, tall and pure, gave back the moonlight from 
the fountain-rims, and musk-roses were wooed by the 
nightingales from moonrise to day-dawn. 

This is what my yellow-haired princess say^ to me, as I 
unclose the book, and a waft of the perfinne she brought 
from the enchanted regions steals forth. She was bright 
as the sun, clear as the day, sweeter than the magnolias, 
when Caput came with her, into Boy's room the day after 
my moonlight reverie at the window, and gave her into 
my hand : 

"Mr. R S 's compliments and regrets that you 

could not join the walking-party." 

She has a page to herself, — the peerless beauty ! as the 
episode of the four days' visit of our transatlantic friends 
glows out from the pale level of our social life during our 
as many weeks' lingering at Cadenabbia. 

We made excursions when Boy was well enough to leave 
his bed, by boat, by carriage and on foot. We bought in 
Bellaggio more olive-wood thimble-cases, ink-stands, silk- 
winders, darning-eggs and paper-cutters than we shall 
ever get rid of on Christmases and birth-days. We visited 
silk-factories ; penetrated the malodorous recesses of stone 
cottages to see the loathsome worms gorging themselves 
with mulberry-leaves ; going into silken retirement and 
enforced fasting after their gluttony, and boiling by the 
million in a big pot, dirty peasant women catching at the 
loosened threads and winding them on bobbins until the 
dead nakedness of the spinner was exposed. We read, 
studied and wrote in the scorching noons and passed the 
evenings in walking and sailing. We did not tire of lake 
or country, but July was late for Italy, and my system 
may have absorbed poison from the Lombardy marshes. 
When, on the morning of July 4th, the diligence we had 
engaged for the journey to Porlezza drove to the door, I 



358 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

was supported down the stairs after a week of pain and 
debility, and lifted into my place in the coiip'e^ or deep front 
seat, facing the horses. 

Wedged in and stayed by cushions, I soon tested and 
'approved the sagacity of an eminent physician's advice 
to invalids — chronic and occasional. " Change air and 
place, instead of drugging yourself. Move as long as you 
can stir. When you cannot, — be carried! But, go ! " 

The air was fresh and invigorating, blowing straight 
from the mountains. The road wound up and over ter- 
raced hills, cultivated to the topmost ridges ; through 
fertile valleys and delicious forest glades, gemmed with 
wood blossoms. It was haying time. Purple clover and 
meadow-grasses were swathed, drying, and stacked in a 
hundred fields, the succulent stems yielding under the 
tropical sun the balm of a thousand — ten thousand flowers. 
I have talked of the wild Flora of Italy until the reader 
may sicken at the hint of further mention of such tapestry 
as Nature rolled down to our wheel-tracks. Cyclamen, 
violets, wild peas, — daisies, always and everywhere, — edged 
and pearled the green carpet. The scenery changed 
gradually, without loss of beauty, in nearing the Lake of 
Lugano. Lying among pillows on the deck of the steamer 
we had taken at Porlezza, I noted that the very mountain 
shapes were unlike those environing Como, and their 
coloring darker. There were no more straight brows and 
abrupt precipices, but one conical height was linked to 
another, furrowed by foaming cascades, springing from 
crest and sides, until S. Salvador loomed up before us at 
the terminus of our twelve-mile sail, majestic and symmet- 
rical, wearing a gray old convent as a bride her nuptial 
crown. 

At the Hotel Belle Vue, on the border of the lake, we 
tarried two days, to rally strength for the continuous effort 



'*NON t POSSIBILE." 359 

of the next week, more than to inspect Lugano and its 
suburbs. We hired here a carriage, in size and general 
features resembling a Concord stage. A written contract 
was signed by both parties. The driver, vehicle and four 
horses were ours until we should be delivered, baggage 
and bodies, upon the steamboat plying between Fluelen, 
at the upper end of the Lake of the Four Cantons, and 
the town of Lucerne. The diligence was well-hung, fitted 
up with red velvet seats, soft and elastic ; the horses were 
strong and true, — the driver spoke Italian — not German, 
which we were beginning to dread. For almost a week 
we were to be only passengers, free to eat, sleep and see 
at our will, without the fear of altered prices, extras and 
other sharp impositions, incessantly weighing upon our 
foreign-born souls. 

How we climbed the Alps is too long a story to relate in 
detail. Maggiore, the Ticino, Bellinzona, the quiet Sab- 
bath at Faido near the mouth of the St. Gothard tunnel, 
then building, — I catch the names in fluttering the leaves 
of our note-books, and each has its story. 

Julius Caesar fought his way from Rome to Gaul through 
the valley of the Ticino. The plains on each side of the 
classic river, as level an an Illinois prairie, are a narrow 
strip between the mighty ranges of snow-mountains. 
The meadow-farms are divided by hedge-rows and flecked 
with grazing flocks. Other herds are pastured high up 
the hill-sides in the summer, the huts of their keepers 
black or tawny dots, when seen from below. ' Every few 
furlongs, cataracts flash into sight, hasting by impetuous 
leaps, down the rocks to the river, not infrequently dispers- 
ing themselves in spray and naught, in the length and num- 
ber of their bounds. 

We crossed the Pass, July 9th — a cloudless day. Since 
early morning we had been climbing. The road is built 



360 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and cut into the solid mountain, and barely wide enough 
to permit the skillfully-conducted passage of two diligences. 
It winds up and around spurs and shoulders, and is pro- 
tected at the more dangerous curves and steeper cliffs by 
stout stone posts. The traveler eyes the thickness and ob- 
stinate expression of these with growing satisfaction as 
the villages below dwindle into toy-hamlets and the fields 
into dolls' patchwork-quilts of divers shades of green and 
yellow ; while he makes rapid silent calculations of the 
distance between them, and their relation to the length 
and breadth of the stage. Could we go down backward, 
sideways, anyway, were a horse to balk, or a trace to break, 
or a wheel come off ? Looking directly upward, we saw a 
tedious succession of terraces, similarly guarded ; dizzy 
inclines that were surely inaccessible to hoof or wheel. 
The next hour showed us from the most incredible of 
these, the road from which we had surveyed it. 

''I begin to comprehend * Excelsior,' " said Secunda, 
solemnly. '* No wonder he died when he got to the top ! " 

We were nearing the snow-line. We were warmly wrap- 
ped, but the increasing frostiness of the air warned us to 
unfasten shawl-straps and pull from beneath the seats the 
carriage-rugs we had stowed away at Faido. Caput had 
spent as much time out of the diligence as in it, in the 
ascent. A bed of scarlet pinks or blue gentian ; a blanket 
of hoary moss capped with red ; a clump of yel- 
low pansies — the tiny '' Marguerites " of the Alps, — 
branchy shrubs of rose-colored rhododendrons ; — were 
continually-recurring temptations to leap over the 
wheel from his place in the coupe. Once out, it was 
hardly worth his while to get in again w^ien, for a mile 
or two ahead, the like attractions, and many others, cush- 
ioned the rocks, nodded from their brows and smiled from 
every crevice. Now, as he came up to the side of the car- 



**NON E POSSIBILE." 361 

riage to toss in upon us his burden of beauty, his face was 
reddened by cold, — not sunburned ; — he struck his emptied 
hands smartly together to quicken the circulation, and the 
rime began to form upon his moustache. Scanty patches 
of snow no longer leaked from sheltered nooks across the 
road. Brown earth and barren rocks were hidden par- 
tially, then, entirely, — then, heaped over by the gray drifts. 
They were gray, — positively grimy. Not quite as dirty as 
city-snow, but of a genuine pepper-and-salt that was a 
surprise and a disgust. From below they were as daz- 
zlingly pure as the clouds that caught against them, with 
the same cold azure shadows in their clefts. We were 
driving now between cloven banks of packed snow, — six, 
twelve, twenty feet high, on which the heavens might have 
showered ashes for as many days and nights as darkness 
had brooded over Pompeii, so befouled were they. The 
July sun shone full upon the glistering surface, with no 
more perceptible effect than if the month had been De- 
cember. The ingrained dust had been swept from the iron 
crags jutting into the snow-cutting at the next turn of the 
pass, and frowning upon us from yet loftier terraces. It 
was granitic powder, disintegrated and beaten fine by frost 
and blast. 

Once in a while, we passed a low house with deep eaves 
and great stones laid upon the roof. These supplied ref- 
uge at night and in storm, to the goats browsing on Alpine 
moss and grasses. The herdsmen wore jackets, coats and 
caps of goat and sheepskin. Wiry dogs, not at all like the 
pictorial St. Bernard, slunk at their heels, or barked crossly 
at a straying kid. A clatter of hoofs and rattle of trace- 
chains upon the upper road prepared us for the appear- 
ance of a single horse, trotting steadily by ps in the direc- 
tion from which we had come. 

" Has there been an accident ? " we inquired. • 
i6 



362 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

We might see a coach rolling back upon us next. The 
driver explained that the summit of the Pass was but a 
mile or two ahead ; that the fourth horse Avas not needed 
in the descent and was accordingly released from each 
diligence at the post-house at the top, and sent home by 
himself. 

He was a saturnine ''whip," — for one who spoke Italian 
— but he smiled grimly at the next question: "Will he 
certainly find his way home ? Will nobody try to stop, or 
steal him ? " 

"It is an everyday affair, Signorina. His supper is at 
the foot of the hill. Who should stop him, since every- 
body knows to whom he belongs and whither he goes ? " 

Peering over the edge of the precipice from my window, 
I saw the trained creature, already two hundred feet be- 
low our level, trotting at the same even gait, down the 
zigzag highway. Before we had gone half-a-mile further, 
a second met and passed us, harness on, the traces hooked 
up out of the way of his heels, going downward at the 
regulation rate of speed, neither faster nor slower than his 
predecessor. It was at this point that a volley of soft 
snow-balls flew against and into the carriage, and from 
their ambush, behind a drifted heap, emerged Caput and 
Prima, rosy with laughter and the sharp air. They had 
left the carriage an hour ago to walk directly across the 
ice-fields to this height, a straight track of two miles, while 
we had toiled and doubled over more than six to the ren- 
dezvous. 

Snow-balling in July! The story of the "three little 
boys who went out to slide, All on a summer's day," need 
not have been fictitious if they were St. Gothardites. In 
a trice, Secunda had torn off entangling rugs and was upon 
the ground, and Boy halloaing vociferously to be allowed 
a share in the sport. The driver sat upon the box, gazing 



**NON fi POSSIBILE." 363 

at his horses' ears, unmoved by the whizzing missiles, 
merry shrieks and deafening detonations from the frozen 
rocks. I was cramped by long sitting, even in my luxuri- 
ous nest upon the back seat. I would get out. The snow 
'was not white, but it was snow. I longed to feel it crisp 
and crunch under my feet. 

** Is it quite prudent ?" remonstrated Miss M , gently. 

*' Come on ! " encouraged the revelers. 

After a dozen trial-steps, I boldly avowed my intention 
to walk to the nearest curve in the road. Caput gave me 
his arm and we sent the coach on with the others. The 
ground was smooth as a skating-pond, but not so slippery. 
A mountain-wall, five hundred feet high, arose in sheer 
perpendicular at our left. 

''Take it slowly!" cautioned my escort. *'You are 
weak, and the air highly rarefied." 

That^ then, was the reason why respiration passed rapidly 
from difficulty to pain. I should get used to it soon, and 
to the horrible aching in my right lung. But, when, hav- 
ing walked beyond the lee of the rocky rampart, the 
breeze from a neighboring glacier struck us in the face, I 
thought breath was gone forever. In vain Caput, turning 
my back to the wind, sheltered me with his broad shoulders 
and assured me the pain would be short-lived. The agony 
of suffocation went on. I had but one distinct recollection 
in the half-death : 

"A traveler died, last year, near the top of the Pass 
from collapse of the lungs T' a gentleman had said to an- 
other one evening at the hotel as I passed through the 
hall. 

I had scarcely thought of it again until now, when I 
was dying in the same way. I heard Caput's shout to the 
driver ; saw mistily the entire party tumble out into the 
snow, and Prima, plunging down a steep bank to reach us 



364 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the sooner, — brandy-bottle in hand. As if swallowing 
were easier than breathing ! They got me into my nest 
again ; wound me up in shawls and rugs ; poured some 
wine down my throat ; chafed my hands, and, after an age 
of misery, the tiniest whiff of breath found entrance to the 
laboring lungs, as when a closed bellows is slowly opened. 

The driver, during all this commotion, sat, rigid as the 
nearest Alp, without abating his scrutiny of his leaders' 
ears. Collapsing lungs were no novelty and no terror to 
him, and none of his business. He had contracted to de- 
liver us, alive or dead — (and our luggage,) upon the deck 
of the Fluelen steamer within a week, for and in considera- 
tion of the sum of so many hundred francs. That was all 
he knew or cared about the matter. He loosened one of 
our horses at the post-house on the summit, and the pa- 
tient beast trotted off down the mountain in the convoy of 
a dog chained to his collar. The cold was now piercing ; 
the never-thawed ice of the lake before the Hospice, blue 
and hard as steel. Caput added to his adjurations to 
haste, a gratuity that touched a chord of natural feeling 
in the wooden man. He fairly raced down the other side 
of the mountain, spinning around curves and grating upon 
the wheel-brakes while our hair stood on end and our 
teeth were on edge. Down defiles between heights that 
held up the heavens on each side ; on the verge of preci- 
pices with the wheels almost scraping upright rocks on the 
left and grazing the outermost edge on the right ; thunder- 
ing over bridges and flying through the spray of water- 
falls, we plunged, ever downward — until, at sunset, we 
whirled out into the open plain and into the yard of the 
Hotel Belle Vue at Andermatt. 

In ten minutes more, I lay, smothering in the well of 
one feather-bed, another upon me, and was cold withal. 
A Swiss maid was building a fire in the stove, within four 



"NON t POSSIBILE." 365 

feet of the bolster. The Invaluable and the spirit-lamp 
were brewing a comforting cup of tea upon the round 
stand at my side. 

The hotel was excellent, being clean, commodious, well- 
provisioned and handsomely-appointed as to furniture and 
service. The rest of the party used it as a center for all- 
day excursions to the Furca Pass and the Rhone Glacier, 
while I lay in bed, too worn and miserable to be more 
than feebly diverted by scraps of conversation that arose to 
my windows from the piazza and lawn. Such, for example 
as this : 

English Voice — feminine and fat. " I guess you are an 
American boy, stranger ! " 

Boy. " What makes you think so ? " 

E. K "Oh! I judge — I mean, I guess — by the cut of 
you. " 

Boy (who never ''guesses" — ) ''And I judge you are 
English. I can tell them wherever I see them." 

E. K " How— I should like to know ? " 

Boy (knowing and sententious). " Americans are white 
and thin. English are fat and red." 

E. V. " Upon me word ! You are not very white, I am 
sure ! " 

Boy. " Ah ! but if you had seen me when I had the 
measles at Cadenabbia ! Misericordia ! I was as red as 
you ! " 

This chapter has two morals for those whom they may 
concern. 

To Traveling Americans and those who hope to become 
such: Heed wisely Nature's emphatic or hinted ^^ Non e 
possibile ! '' Do not attempt the St. Gothard or Simplon 
Pass if you have unsound lungs or heart. 

To the Average Briton : A monkey is bettef at cutting 
capers than an elephant. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Lucerne and The Rigi, 

HOTOGRAPHS, casts and carvings of the Lu- 
cerne Lion are well-nigh as plentiful as copies of 
the Beatrice of the Palazzo Barberini. All — 
even the best of these — fall lamentably short of expressing 
the simple grandeur of Thorwaldsen's boldest work. The 
face of a perpendicular sandstone cliff was hewn roughly, 
— not smoothed nor polished in any part. Half-way up 
was quarried a niche, and in this, as in his lair, lies a lion, 
nearly thirty feet long. The splintered shank of a lance 
projects from his side. The head — broken or bitten off in 
his mortal throe, lies by the shield of France, which is em- 
bossed with the flaw de lys. One huge paw protects the 
sacred emblem. He has dragged himself, with a final 
rally of strength to die upon, while caressing it. He will 
never move again. The limbs are relaxed, the mighty 
frame stretched by the convulsion that wrenched away his 
life. He is dead — not daunted ; — conquered, — not sub- 
dued. The blended grief and ferocity in his face are 
human and heroic, not brutal. In the rock above and 
below the den are cut a Latin epitaph, and the names of 
twenty-six men. 

''^ Helvetioru77i fidei ac virtuti. Die X Aug. II et III Sept.^ 
1792 ;" begins the inscription. The date tells the story. 



LUCERNE AND THE RIGI. 36/ 

Who has not read, oft and again, how the Swiss Guard 
of twenty-six officers and seven hundred and fifty privates 
were cut to pieces to a man in defence of the royal prisoner 
of the Tuileries against the mob thirsting for her blood ? 
In the little shop near the monument they show a fac- 
simile of the king's order to the Guards to be at the palace 
upon the fatal day. Trailing vines have crept downward 
from the top and fissures of the cliff. Tall trees clothe 
the summit. A pool lies at the base, a slender fountain in 
the middle. There are always travelers seated upon the 
benches in front of the railing guarding the water's brink, 
contemplating the dead monarch. It is the pride of Lu- 
cerne. 

Just above it is the Garden of the Glacier, lately un- 
covered. The earth has been removed with care, reveal- 
ing cup-like basins in the sandstone, worn by the glacial 
action of the round stones lying in the bottom of the hol- 
lows. 

'' Do yt)u believe it?" I overheard an American girl ask 
her cavalier, as they leaned over the railing of a rustic 
bridge crossing the largest *'cup." 

"Not a bit of it ! It's gotten up to order by some of 
these foreign scientifs. Stones are too round, and the 
marks of grinding too plain. Fact is — the Glacial Theory 
is the nobby thing, now-a-days, and if there's no trick 
about this concern, it's proved — clear as print ! But they've 
done it too well. Nature doesn't turn out such smooth 
jobs." 

It is very smooth work. Those who believe in the au- 
thenticity of the record, gaze with awe at the stones, vary- 
ing in size from a nine-pin ball to boulders of many tons' 
weight, forced into their present cavities by the slow rota- 
tion of cycles. Ball and boulder have been ground down 
themselves in all this wear and tear, but the main rock has 



368 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

been the 'greater sufferer. The glacier was the master" and 
resistless motive-power. 

The great Glacier of the Uri-Rothestock was in sight of 
my bed-room windows, flanked by the eternal snow-line 
of the Engelberger Alps. Across the lake from the city 
loomed Mt. Pilatus. 

*' If Pilatus wears his cap, serene will be the day ; 
If his collar he puts on, you may venture on your way. 
But if his sword he wields, at home you'd better stay " — 

is an English translation of a Lucerne rhyme. Guide- 
books refer to him as the district-barometer. Our experi- 
ence — and we watched him narrowly for a month, — proved 
him to be as unstable as was he for whom he was named. 
There is a gloomy tarn upon the southern declivity in which 
Pontius Pilate drowned himself, a remorseful exile, driven 
from palace, judgment-seat and country, but unable to 
evade the torment of memory and the accusing^ision of 
''that Just Man." So runs the popular legend, and that 
the "cap," "collar" and "sword "of the mountain rise 
from this dark and accursed lake. Moreover, it is believed 
by the peasants that storms follow the approach of a 
foreigner to the haunted spot. With all his humors and 
untruthfulness, Pilatus deserves a better name. He is a 
striking and magnificent accessory to a view that is glori- 
ous in every aspect. 

Every rood of ground around Lake Lucerne, otherwise 
known as the Lake of the Four Cantons, is memorable in 
the history of the gallant little Republic. Near it, Arnold 
Winkelried gathered into his breast the red sheaf of spears 
upon the battle-field of Sempach, July 9th, 1386. 

The Confederate Brethren of Uri, Schwyz and Unter- 
walden, met at Riitli upon the very border of the lake, on 



LUCERNE AND THE RIGI. 369 

the night of November 7th, 1307, and swore to give no rest 
to mind or body until Switzerland should be free. 

William Tell was born at Biirglen, a few miles above 
Fluelen. It is fashionable to call him a myth, and his 
biography symbolical. If our opinion on this head had 
been demanded prior to our going to Lucerne, the spirit, 
if not the letter of our reply would have been akin to 
Betsey Prig's '' memorable and tremendous words," — ''I 
don't believe there's no sich a person ! " By the time we 
had re-read Schiller's ''William Tell," and visited, with it 
in hand, Altorf, Kiissnacht and Tell's Platte, we credited 
the tales of his being and daring almost as devoutly as do 
the native Switzers. 

Kiissnacht is but a couple of miles back from the lake in 
the midst of a smiling country lying between water and 
mountains. A crumbling wall on a hill-side to the left of 
the road was pointed out to us as the remains of Gessler's 
Castle, pulled down and burned by the Confederates the 
year after the Oath of Riitli. The Hollow Way in which 
Tell shot him is a romantic lane between steep, grassy 
banks and overhanging trees. It was by this that Gessler 
approached the tree behind which Tell lay, concealed, 
cross-bow in hand. The exact place of the tyrant's death 
is marked by a little chapel. A fresco in the porch depicts 
the scene described by Schiller. The purple Alpine heather 
blossoms up to the church-door, and maiden-hair ferns 
fringe the foundation walls. The short, warm season in 
Switzerland is blessed by frequent and copious showers ; 
the face of the' earth is freshly green and the herbage 
almost as luxuriant as are the spring- crops of Italy. We 
drove a mile beyond the chapel to Immensee, a hamlet 
upon Lake Zug. Lunch was spread for us at a round 
table in the lakeside garden of a cafe. The Rigi rose 
abruptly from the southern and narrower end of the blue 
16* 



370 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

sheet. Drifts of gauzy haze were sailing slowly across the 
broad brow, 

** Almost six thousand feet high ! " remarked Prima, 
following the outlines with thoughtful eyes. '' And Zug 
is thirteen hundred feet deep. Lake Thun fifteen hundred. 
One's imagination needs Swiss training in order to grasp 
such figures.' 

The opposite heights were a much lower group, grace- 
ful in undulation and form, and heavily wooded. To our 
right as we sat, was a barren line, like a mountain-road, 
running sharply down the side of one of the range. 

''The Goldnau Landslip ! " We had heard of it almost 
as long and frequently as of the Wyllie disaster in the 
White Mountains. In 1806, a strip of the mountain, one 
thousand feet long and one hundred thick, slid, on a Sep- 
tember afternoon, at first slowly, then, with frightful velo- 
city, until it crashed, three thousand feet below, upon four 
peaceful villages at the foot of the slope and into the Lake 
of Lowerz. To this day, a solemn mass is said in the sister- 
village of Artli, upon the anniversary of the calamity, for 
the souls of the four hundred-and-odd men, women and 
children who perished in that one hour. Lowerz, forced 
thus suddenly from its bed, reared, a tottering wall of 
waters, eighty feet high, and fell backward upon islands 
and shores, bearing churches, dwellings and trees before 
it. It is a mere pond now, a little over a mile wide, and 
but fifty feet deep, the debris of the slide having settled in 
it. A peaceful eye of light, it reflected the quiet heavens 
as we looked back upon it from the hill above Immensee, 
but the awful track on which neither tree nor bush takes 
root, leads down into it. 

Tell's Platte — or ''Leap" — is marked by a tiny chapel 
upon the extremest water's edge near Riitli. Its founda- 
tions are built into the rock upon which the patriot sprang 



LUCERNE AND THE RIGI. 371 

from Gessler's boat. The present shrine belongs probably 
to the sixteenth century, but the original chapel was con- 
secrated, — declare the annalists of the country, and the 
English translator of Schiller, — when men who had seen 
and known Tell were alive and present at the ceremony. 
An altar stands within the recess — it is only that. The 
front is arched and pillared, and the steps are washed by 
the wake of each passing steamer. A great Thanksgiving 
Mass for Swiss liberty is performed here once in the year, 
attended by a vast concourse of people in gaily-decorated 
boats. There is not room on the shelving shore for a con- 
gregation. 

Altorf is a clean Swiss village where the window-curtains 
are all white, and most of the casements gay with flowers, 
and where the children, clean, too, but generally bare- 
legged and bare-headed, turn out in a body to gather 
around the strangers who stop to look at the monument. 
A very undignified memorial it is of the valiant Liberator. 
A big, burly plaster statue of the father, erected on the 
ground where Tell stood to shoot at the apple, brandishes 
the reserved arrow in the face of an imaginary bailiff. 
''With which I meant to kill you had I hurt my son ! " 
says the inscription on the pedestal. The lime-tree to 
which the boy Albert was tied to be shot at was one hun- 
dred and forty-seven measured paces away. A fountain is 
there now, adorned by the statue of the magistrate who 
gave it to the town. Upon the sides of a tower that ante- 
dates Tell's day, are faded frescoes, commemorating the 
apple-shot, his jump from the rocking boat and Gessler's 
death. The Swiss are not enthusiastic idealists. They 
believe — very much — in a veritable Tell, preserve with 
jealous and reverential affection all traces of his existence 
and national services. 

Our first ascent of the Rigi was made in company with 



372 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

two of our American '' boys," college-mates who had ** run 
over " to pass a three months' vacation upon " the other 
side." Letters announcing this intention had been sent to 
us from home, and a later missive from London, contain- 
ing a copy of their 'itinerary," repeated the invitation to 
join them at the steamboat landing in Lucerne, July 23d, 
4.10 p.m. for a sail up the lake and a night on the Rigi. 

*' But how very-very extror'nary ! Quite American in 
point of fact ! " ejaculated an English lady, to whom I 
spoke at the lunch-table of our intended excursion. 
''When you have heard nothing from them in three 
weeks ! They may have altered their plans entirely. You 
will not meet them, you may be sure." 

I smiled confidently. " The engagement is of six 
weeks' standing. They will keep it, or we should have had 
a telegram." 

The steamboat touched at our side of the lake for pas- 
sengers and I got on there, while Caput, who had an 
errand in the town, walked around by the iron bridge. I 
watched him cross it ; noted what we had cause, after- 
ward, to recollect, — the white radiations from the stone 
pavement that forms the flooring of the long causeway, 
and that the deck was hot to my feet. 

" The intensest sun-blaze I have ever felt ! " he said, 
coming aboard at the railway terminus. " Strangely sick- 
ening too ! It made the brain reel ! " 

The train was puffing into the station. Among the ear- 
liest to step on the gangway were two bronzed youths on 
whose beards no foreign razor had fallen. ^ Each carried a 
small satchel and had no other luggage or ijiipedimenta 
incompatible with a quick "run." New Yorkers going 
out to Newark or Trenton to pass the night with friends 
would have evinced as much sense of strangeness. " 

"We planned everything before sailing from home," 



LUCERNE AND THE RIGI. 3/3 

they said when we commended their punctuality '' Lu- 
cerne and the Rigi were written down for to-day." 

They had never seen Lucerne before, but they had 
*' studied it up " and were at home on the lake so soon as 
they got the points of the compass and we had swung loose 
from the pier. They would return with us to the town on 
the morrow and spend a day in seeing it. Including the 
Lion, of course, and the Glacial Garden and the old cov- 
ered bridge with the queer paintings of the Dance of Death. 
And hear the grand organ in the Stifts-Kirche at vespers. 
The city- walls were better-preserved than they had imagined 
they would be. The nine watch-towers — where were they ? 
They could count but six. They were on the lookout for 
the four arms that make the lake cruciform and traced 
them before we could designate them. Was that old tower 
in the rear of the handsome chateau over there the famous 
Castle of Hapsburg ? Pilatus they recognized at a glance, 
and the different expression of his shore from the cheer- 
ful beauty of the Lucerne side, the pleasant town and the 
rising background of groves and fields, gardens and or- 
chards. Vitznau ? Were we there so soon ? The sail had 
been to the full as charming as they had anticipated. 

All this was, as the English lady had said, " quite Amer- 
ican." To us, used for many months to alternate douches 
of British nil admirai-ism and hot baths of Italian and 
French exaggeration of enthusiasm, the clear, methodical 
scheme of travel, the intelligent appreciation of all that 
met the eye, the frank, yet not effusive enjoyment of a 
holiday, well-earned and worthily-spent, were as refresh- 
ing as a dipper of cool water from the homestead spring 
would have been on that ''blazing" day. 

If we had never gone up the Mount Washington Rail- 
way, the ascent of the Rigi would have been exciting. 
The cars are less comfortable than those on the New 



374 "LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Hampshire mountain, and the passengers all ride up back- 
ward, for the better enjoyment of the view, — a miserable 
arrangement for people of weak stomachs and heads. Mt. 
Washington had been a thrilling terror that fascinated me 
as did ghost-stories in my childhood. The Rigi is a series 
of gentle inclines with but one span of trestle-work that 
could have scared the most indefatigably-timid woman. 
But Mt. Washington offers no such prospect as was un- 
folded for us in wider and more wondrous beauty with 
each minute. The sun was setting when, instead of enter- 
ing the Hotel Rigi-Kulm where our rooms had been en- 
gaged by telegraph from Lucerne, we walked out upon the 
plateau on which the house stands. Against the south- 
w^estern horizon lay the Schreckhorner, Finsteraarhorn, 
and — fairest of *' maidens," — the Jungfrau, — faint blushes 
flickering through the white veils they have worn since 
the fall of the primeval snow. On the south-east the 
Bristenstock, Windgelle, Ober-Alp, and a score of minor 
mounts, unknown to us by name, caught and repeated 
the reflected fires of the sunset. The air was perfectly 
still, and the distances so clear as to bring out the lines 
of heights like penciled curves, that are seldom seen 
even from an outlook embracing an area of three hun- 
dred miles. ''Alps on Alps!" Mountain rising behind 
and overtopping mountain, until the sublime succession 
melted into the outlined curves just mentioned. In the 
direction of Lucerne, stretched right beneath us what 
seemed a level, checkered expanse of farms, groves and 
villages, lighted, once in a while, by the gleam of a lake 
(we counted ten without stirring or turning from where 
we stood) and intersected by an hundred streams. The 
twilight was gathering upon the plain. When the light 
had died out from lake and river, we stood in the sunshine, 
and the snow-summits were deepening into crimson. The 



LUCERNE AND THE RIGI. 375 

air was chill, but we lingered to show our friends the 
^' Alpen-glow," — to us a daily- renewed and lovely mystery. 
The lowlands were wrapped in night ; the ruddied snows 
paled into pink, — ashes-of-roses, — dead white. The West 
was pallid and still. The day had waned and died, blankly 
and utterly. When, suddenly, from peak to peak, glowed 
soft flame, — a flush of exquisite rose-color, quivering like 
wind-blown fire, yet, lasting a whole minute by my watch, 
ere it trembled again into dead whiteness. Another minute, 
and the phenomenon recurred, but less vividly. It was a 
blush that rose and blenched as with a breath slowly drawn 
and exhaledo One could not but fancy that the white- 
breasted mountains heaved and fell with the glow in long 
sighs, before sinking and darkening into slumber. 

*'It is really night now!" Caput broke the silence. 
*' We will go in. But it was worth staying to see, though 
one had witnessed the like a thousand times." 

We came out again after an excellent dinner, but the 
wind had risen, the night was piercingly cold, and we were 
driven into our beds. By nine o'clock there was nowhere 
else to go. The lights were extinguished in the salon and 
main halls, and bed-room fires had not been thought of. 
The only suggestion of comfort was in the single beds 
heaped higher than they were broad with blankets and 
dtivefs. The window at the foot of my couch was unshut- 
tered. Sleep was slow in coming, while the wind thun- 
dered like rock-beaten surf against the house, threatened 
to burst the rattling casements. 

I pulled another pillow under my head, and had a pic- 
ture before me that made me revel in wakefulness. The 
moon was up and near the full. The horizon was girdled 
with effulgence, sparkling, chaste — inconceivable. The 
valleys were gulfs of purple dusks ; the forest-slopes black 
as death. I could discern the glitter of granitic cliffs, and 



37^ LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

upon inferior hills, the sheen of snow-banks left in sunless 
hollows. Had my eyes been sealed, I should have pro- 
nounced it a tempestuous night. Could I have closed my 
ears, the divinest calm had brooded upon the world en- 
closed within the white mountains. 

'* The strength of the hills is His also ! " The strength 
of these heights ! Serenity of power ! The perfectness 
of Peace ! 

I did not mean to sleep. There would be other nights, — • 
and days — if I chose to take them: — for that. But the bugle- 
call at half-past three startled me from slumber in which 
moonlight and mountains were forgotten as though they 
were not. The snow-tops w^ere dimmer in the dawn than 
they were under the high moon, the sky behind them dun 
and sullen. Guests are forbidden by English, French and 
German placards to '' take the blankets from their beds." 
The wisdom of the prohibition was palpable to all who 
assembled upon the plateau to see the sun-rise. The wind 
was still furious, the morning colder than the night, and, 
I think, not ten people out of the forty or fifty shiverers 
present had made a regular toilette. Ladies had thrown 
on double flannel wrappers, and tied up their heads in 
hoods and scarfs. Gentlemen had donned dressing-gowns, 
and some had come forth in slippered haste. All wore 
cumbrous shawls, waterproof cloaks and railway rugs. 
One half-frozen Frenchman was enveloped in a strip of 
bed-side carpet brought from his chamber. A more seri- 
ous annoyance than cold or gale, was the dust, raised by the 
latter, — or more correctly speaking, minute grains of at- 
trite granite that offended eyes and nostrils. I had dressed 
snugly and warmly, and tied a thick veil over my face and 
ears, but the wind tore viciously at my wraps, and the 
pulverized particles sifted through the net until I could 
scarcely breathe, even by turning my back upon it, while 



LUCERNE AND THE RIGI. 377 

my three cavaliers formed a close guard between me and 
the hurricane. We could not forget discomfort, but we 
disregarded it when we had cleared our eyes from the 
stinging sand. 

The lower landscape was still in shadow, the mountains 
wrapped in bluish-gray indistinctness. Presently, warm 
glows of color suffused the dun vapors of the lower heav- 
ens, — saffron and rose and carmine ; — quivering arrows 
of amber light shot upward and outward from an unseen 
center below the horizon verge, — and, one by one, as hea- 
cons respond to the flash of the signal-fire, the loftiest 
tips of Finsteraarhorn, Schreckhorner, Wetterhorn, the 
Monch, the Eiger — the Jungfrau — flamed up above the 
mists. Floods of changeful lights rolled down upon the 
lesser hills, revealing peak, chasm and valley; pouring, 
finally, a benign deluge over the plain. It was not a swift, 
capricious darting of rays hither and yon, but a gradual 
growth of the power of the light into a fullness of occupa- 
tion. The sun came in calm stateliness out of his cham- 
ber in the east, and the world was awake. 

Early as it was, women and boys were threading the 
crowd with chamois-horn paper-cutters and knobby 
bunches of dirty Edelweiss and Alpine roses for sale at 
Rigi-Kulm — (or tip-top) prices. An Englishman, in an 
Indian-pattern dressing-gown, a smoking-cap bound over 
his ears with a Madras handkerchief, — swore roughly at 
them collectively, and at one poor hag in particular, as she 
offered the shabby bouquet. 

''Picked but yesterday, milor', from the edge of a gla- 
cier. Milor' knows — ■" with a ghastly smirk — '' that the 
Edelweiss is the betrothal-flower ? " 

He may have understood the wretched patois of Swiss- 
German-French. He probably comprehended nothing 
except that she wanted him to buy what he styled, not in- 



378 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

aptly — ''filthy rubbish." But he would have sworn as 
vehemently in either case, for the wind had tangled him 
up badly in his voluminous skirts, and while striving to 
disengage his calves with one hand he held on to his cap 
— possibly to his peruke — with the other. 

'* Monsieur !" implored the woman, lifting the flowers 
to the face of that one of '* our boys " nearest me. 

He shook his head with a smile, — being American, and 
a gentleman — gave a look at her pinched visage and poor 
garments, and his hand moved toward his pocket. 

'' I don't want them, you know ! " to me. *' But — " an- 
other merciful glance. 

'' Cofnbien? " I said to the woman. 

She had, in my hearing, asked the Anglo-Indian to give 
her half a franc for the bunch. 

She now protested that the three Edelweiss were cheap 
at five sous (cents) each, and the three Alpine roses should 
go as a bargain to ^^ le beau Monsieur'* at three cents a 
piece. 

'' You are a cheat — and a very foolish one ! " I said. To 
my young friend — ''American sympathy is a marketable 
commodity over here. Only, he who gives it, pays in cur- 
rent coin her who receives it." 




CHAPTER XXVII. 
Personal and Practical, 

HAVE alluded to the intense blaze of the sun 
upon the day of our tryst with the newly-ar- 
rived travelers. Until then we had not suffered 
from heat in Switzerland. Our pension was a stone 
building, with spacious, high-ceiled rooms, in which the 
breeze from lake and icy mountains was ever astir, and we 
were rarely abroad excepting at morning and evening. 

On our way home the next afternoon,- after a delightful 
sail to Fluelen and back, and a visit to Altorf, we met Boy 
and nurse at the gate of the public park where he and I 
went daily for the '' milk-cure." Three or four cows and 
twice as many goats were driven into the enclosure at five 
o'clock and tethered at the door of a rustic pavilion. 
There they were milked, and invalids and children drank 
the liquid warm from great tumblers like beer-glasses. 
Goats' milk had been prescribed for me, and I could endure 
the taste when it was fresh. When cold, the flavor was 
peculiar and unpleasant. Boy usually relished his deep 
draught of cows' milk, but to-day he would not touch it. 
He had a grievance, too, that had tried temper and pride. 
'■^ Things bother me so, mamma ! The people here are 
so foolish ! A woman had some fruit to sell down there 
by the Schweizerhof and said a long nonsense to me. I 
said — ' Non capisco Tedesco ! ' and everybody laughed. It's 



380 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

good Italian, and means — * I don't understand a word of 
your horrid old Dutch ! ' " 

He began to sob. Papa picked him up and carried him 
to our carriage. When we were in our rooms, the Inval- 
uable had her story to tell. Boy had taken a long walk 
with his sister in the forenoon and had come home com- 
plaining of headache and violent nausea. Seeming better 
toward evening, he had insisted upon going for his milk, 
and she had hoped the cooler air would refresh him. 

*' I want to go back where people have sense and can 
understand me ! " moaned the little fellow. '^ I'm not a 
bit sick ! I'm discouraged ! " 

The fever ran high all night. The following day we 
summoned Dr. Steiger, the best physician in Lucerne. 
There are few better an}^where. For the next fortnight — 
the saddest of our exile — his visits were the brightest 
gleams in the chamber shadowed by such wild fears as we 
hardly dared avow to one another. Cheerful, intelligent, 
kindly, the doctor would have been welcome had his treat- 
ment of our stricken child been less manifestly skillful. 

*' He is a sick boy. But you are brave ? " looking around 
at us from his seat at the pillow of the delirious patient. 
" I will tell you the truth. He has had a coup de soleil. He 
is likely to have a long fever. It is not typhoid yet, but it 
may be, by and by. Strangers unused to the sun in Swit- 
zerland are often seriously affected by it. When he gets 
well, you will be careful of him for one, two, three years. 
Now — we will do our best for him. I have four boys of 
my own. And — " a quick glance at me — '' I know what is 
tiie mother's heart ! " 

I would not review, even in thought, the three weeks 
succeeding this decision, were it not that I cannot bring 
myself to withhold the tribute of grateful hearts — then so 
heavy ! to the abundant goodness of the stranger-physician 



PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL. 38 1 

wfiose name we had never heard until our boy's illness, 
and to the sympathy and active kindness that were our 
portion from every boarder in a house filled with English 
and Americans. Jellies, ices, fruit, flowers, toys, were 
handed in at Boy's door, with tender inquiries, froin hour 
to hour, as to his condition. Music-loving girls who had 
scarcely left the piano silent for fifteen minutes during the 
day and evening, now closed it lest the sufferer should be 
disturbed by the sound, his chamber being directly over 
the salon. Every foot trod softly upon the polished floor 
of the upper hall and the stairs, and offers of personal 
service were as earnest and frequent as if we had dwelt 
among our own -people. I write it down with a swelling 
heart that presses the tears to my eyes. For Heaven knows 
how sore was our need of friendly offices and Good Sama- 
ritans at that juncture ! The house was handsome, well- 
furnished and kept beautifully clean. Well people fared 
comfortably enough. But, for sickness we found, as we 
had everywhere else — notably at Cadenabbia— no provi- 
sion whatever, and with regard to dietetic cookery, depths 
of ignorance that confounded us. 

I could not for money — much less for love or pity's sake — 
get a cup of gruel or beef-tea made in the kitchen. When 
Boy was convalescent and his life depended upon the ju- 
dicious administration of nourishment, I tried to have 
some oatmeal porridge cooked, according to directions, 
below stairs, paying well for the privilege. There were 
two pounds of oatmeal in the package. I ordered half-a- 
cupful to be boiled a long time in a given quantity of 
water, stirred up often from the bottom and slightly 
salted. The cook — a professed cordon bleu — cooked it all 
at once and sent it up in a prodigious tureen,— a gallon of 
soft, grayish paste, seasoned with pepper, salt, lemon-peel 
and chopped garlic ! 



382 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

I did give the landlady credit for an inexplicable fit of 
motherly kindness when, at length, fish and birds, nicely 
broiled, came up, every day or two, to brighten the pale 
little face laid against the cushions of his lounge ; thanked 
her for them heartily and with emotion. 

''It is not'ing!" she said, beaming (as when was she 
not ?) "I only wis' to know dat de beautiful child ees 
better. I t'ought he could taste de feesh." 

I was grateful and unsuspicious for a week, recanting, re- 
pentantly, the hard things I had said of continental human 
nature, and admitting Madame to the honorable list of ex- 
ceptions, headed — far above hers — by Dr. Steiger's name. 
Then, chancing to come down-stairs one day, shod with 
the "shoes of silence" I wore in the sick-room, I trod 
upon the heels of a handsome young Englishman, almost 
a stranger to me, who was spending the honeymoon with 
his bride in Switzerland. He had been three weeks in 
this house, and we had not exchanged ten sentences with 
him or his wife. He stood now in the hall, his back 
toward me, in close conference with Madame, our hostess. 
He was in sporting - costume, fishing-rod on shoulder. 
Madame held a fine fish, just caught, and was receiving 
his instructions delivered in excellent French : 

"You will see that it is broiled — with care — you know, 
and sent, as you have done the others, to the little sick 
boy in No. 10. And this is for the cook ! " 

There was the chink of coin. The cook ! whom I had 
feed generously and regularly for preparing the game and 
fish so acceptable to my child ! 

I stepped forward. "It is you, then, Mr. N , whom 

I should thank ! " with a two-edged glance that meant con- 
fusion to Madame, acknowledgment and apology to the 
real benefactor. 

The young Briton blushed as if detected in a crime. 



PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL. 383 

Madame smiled, without blushing, and bustled off to the 
kitchen. 

Happily, Americans are not without ''contrivances" 
even on the Continent. A summary of ours while the 
fever-patient needed delicate food such as American 
nurses and mothers love to prepare, may be useful to 
other wayfarers on the ''road to Jericho." We carried 
our spirit-lamp and kettle with us everywhere. Besides 
these, I bought a small tin saucepan with a cover and a tin 
plate ; made a gridiron of a piece of stout wire, and set up 
a hospital kitchen in one of our rooms at an open window 
that took smoke and odor out of the way. Here, for a 
month, we made beef-tea, broiled birds and steak and 
chops — the meat bought by ourselves in the town ; cooked 
omelettes, gruel, arrowroot jelly, custards, and boiled the 
water for our " afternoon tea." Cream-toast was another 
culinary success, but the bread was toasted down-stairs by 
the Invaluable when she could get — as she phrased it — " a 
chance at the kitchen-fire." Cream and butter were heat- 
ed in the covered tin-cup over our lamp. 

For fifteen days, the fever ran without intermission, 
sometimes so fiercely that the brain raged into frenzied 
wanderings ; for three weeks, our Swiss doctor came 
morning, afternoon or evening — sometimes all three ; for 
a month, our boy was a prisoner to his own room, and we 
attended upon his convalescence before daring to strike 
camp and move northward into Germany. And all in 
consequence of that long walk, without shade of trees or 
umbrella, under the treacherous Swiss sun ! We had had 
our lesson. I pass it on to those who may be willing to 
profit thereby. 

But for this unfortunate break in our plans we would 
have had a happy month in Lucerne. We could not stir 
out of doors without meeting friends from over the sea, 



384 LOITERTNGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

and, every day, cards, inscribed with familiar names, were 
brought in to us. All the American traveling-world goes 
to the Swiss lakes and crosses the Passes in the short sum- 
mer. Lucerne is picturesque in itself and environs. The 
lake ranks next to Como in beauty ; the drives and walks 
in and about it are attractive in scenery and associations. 
Of the healthfulness of those portions of the town lying 
along the quay we had grave doubts. The cellars are 
flooded after every heavy rain, and copious rains are a 
feature of the climate. Our morning walk for our letters 
lay past one of the largest hotels, patronized extensively 
by English and Americans. A rainy night or day was 
sure to be followed by an opening of the rear basement 
windows, and a pumping into the gutter of hogsheads of 
muddy water. The rapid evaporation of the surplus 
moisture under the mid-day heats must have filled the 
atmosphere with noxious exhalations. 

The evening-scene on the quay was brilliant. Hundreds 
of strollers thronged the broad walks beneath the trees ; 
the great fountain threw a column of spray fifty feet into 
the air. A fine band played until ten o'clock before the 
Hotel National ; pleasure-boats shot to and fro upon the 
water ; the lamps of the long bridge, sparkled — a double 
row — in the glassy depths. Upon certain evenings, the 
Lion held levees, being illuminated by colored lights 
thrown upon the massive limbs that seemed to quiver 
under their play, and upon the roll of honor of those who 
died for their queen and for their oath's sake. 

Lucerne is very German in tongue and character — n 
marked and unpleasant change to those who enter Switzer- 
land from the Italian side. Ears used to the flowing 
numbers of the most musical language spoken by man, are 
positively pained by the harsh jargon that responds to his 
effort to make himself intelligible. The English and 



PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL. 585 

French of the shopkeepers and waiters, being filtered 
through the same foul medium, is equally detestable. 
Our friend, Dr. Steiger, spoke all three languages well 
and with a scholarly intelligence that made his English a 
model of conciseness and perspicuity. Our experiences 
and difficulties with other of the native residents would 
make a long chapter of cross-purposes. 

Three times a week the fruit-market is held in the 
arcades of the old town. One reaches them by crooked 
streets and flights of stone steps, beginning in obscure 
corners and zigzagging down to the green Reuss, swirling 
under its bridges and foaming past the light-house tow^er 
to its confluence with the Lake. The summer fruits were, 
to our ideas, an incongruous array. Strawberries — the 
small, dark-red '^ Alpine," conical in shape, spicily sweet 
in flavor ; raspberries, white, scarlet and yellow ; green 
and purple figs ; nectarines ; plums in great variety and 
abundance ; apples, peaches and pears ; English medlars 
and gooseberries ; Italian nespoli and early grapes were a 
tempting variety. We had begun to eat strawberries in 
April in Rome. We had them on our dessert-table in 
Geneva in November. 

The second time I went to the fruit-market, I took 
Prima as interpreter. The peasant-hucksters were obtuse 
to the pantomime I had practised successfully with the 
Italians. The shine of coin in the left palm while the 
right hand designated fruit and weight — everything being 
sold from the scales — elicited only a stolid stare and gruff 
^^ JVein,'' the intonation of which was the acme of dull 
indifference. Thick of tongue and slow of wit, they cared 
as little for what we said as for what we were. Intelligence 
and curiosity may not always go hand-in-hand, but where 
both are absent, what the Yankees call ''a trade," is a 
disheartening enterprise. Having at my side a young 
17 



386 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

lady who " knew " German, I advanced boldly into the 
aisle between the stalls of the sellers, and said — ''Ask this 
woman the price of those gooseberries." Big, red and 
hairy as Esau, they were a lure to American eyes and 
palates. Prima put the question with a glibness truly 
pleasing to the maternal heart, however the gutturals might 
grate upon the ear. The vender's countenance did not 
light up, but she answered readily, if monotonously. 
Prima stared at her, disconcerted. 

'' What does she say ? That is not German ! " 

Italian and French were tried. The woman gazed 
heavily at the Wasserthurm, the quaint tower rising from 
the middle of the river near the covered bridge of the 
Capelbriicke, and remained as unmoved as that antique 
land-mark. 

" This has ceased to be amusing ! " struck in Caput, 
imperatively, and turning about, made proclamation in 
the market-place — " Is there nobody here who can speak 
English ? " 

A little man peeped from a door behind the stall. '* I 
can ! " 

The two monosyllables were the " Open Sesame " to the 
fruity wealth that had been Tantalus apples and a Barme- 
cide banquet and whatever else typifies unfulfilled desire 
to us, up to the moment of his appearing. 

''How odd that the woman should understand me when 
I did not comprehend a word s/ie said ! " meditated our dis- 
comfited interpreter, aloud. 

The enigma w^as solved at lunch, where the story was 
told and the ridiculous element made the most of. A pretty 
little Russian lady was my vis-d-vis. The Russians we met 
abroad were, almost without exception, accomplished 
linguists. They are compelled they say, jestingly, to 
learn the tongues of other peoples, since few have the 



PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL. 38/ 

courage and patience to master theirs. My neighbor's 
English caused us to fall in love with our own language. 
Her speech with her children was in French, and she con- 
versed with German gentlemen at the table with equal 
facility. 

" Your daughter is quite correct in her description of 
the Lucerne dialect," she said, rounding each syllable 
with slow grace that was not punctiliousness. *' It is a 
vile mongrel of which the inhabitants may well be ashamed. 
I have much difficulty in comprehending their simplest 
phrases, and I lived in Germany five years. The Germans 
would disown the patois. It is a provincial composite. The 
better classes understand, but will not speak it." 

I take occasion to say here, having enumerated the sum- 
mer-delicacies offered for sale in the Lucerne market, 
that those of our countrypeople who visit Europe with 
the hope of feasting upon such, products of orchard and 
garden as they leave behind them, are doomed to sore dis- 
appointment Years ago, I heard Dr. E. D. G. Prime of 
the ''^ New York Observer^'' in his delightful lecture, ** All 
Around the World," assert that *' the finest fruit-market 
upon the globe is New York City." We smiled incredu- 
lously, thinking of East Indian pine-apples and mangoes, 
Seville oranges and Smyrna grapes. We came home from 
our briefer pilgrimage, wiser, and thankfully content. We 
murmured, not marveled at the pitiful display of open- 
air fruit in England, remembering the Frenchman's decla- 
ration that baked apples were the only ripe fruit he had 
tasted in that cloudy isle. Plums and apricots there are 
of fair quality, the trees being trained upon sunny walls, 
but the prices of these are moderate only by contrast with 
those demanded for other things. Peaches are sixpence — 
(twelve-and-a-half cents) each. Grapes are reared almost 
entirely in hot-houses, and sell in Covent Garden market 



388 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

at two and three dollars a pound. Pears, comparable to 
the Bartlett, Seckel or Flemish Beauty are nowhere to be 
had, and, in the same celebrated market of fruit and flowers, 
*' American apples" were pressed upon us as the finest, 
and, therefore, costliest of their kind. Gooseberries are 
plentiful and quite cheap, as are cherries and currants. 
Pine-apples in England — ''pines" — bring a guinea or a 
half-guinea apiece, being also, hot-house products. 

'' Do the poor eat no fruit ? " I asked our Leamington 
fruiterer, an intelligent man whose wares were choice and 
varied — for that latitude. 

** They are permitted to pick blackberries and sloes in 
the edges. Of course, pines and peaches are forbidden 
luxuries to people in their station." 

He might have added — " And plums at two cents, apri- 
cots at four, pears at five cents apiece, and strawberries " 
— charged against us by our landlady at half-a-dollar per 
quart in the height of the season. Tomatoes ranged from 
six to twelve cents apiece ! asparagus was scarce and fright- 
fully dear ; green peas, as a spring luxury, were likewise 
intended for rich men's tables. For Indian corn, sweet 
potatoes, egg-plants, Lima and string-beans, summer 
squash and salsify we inquired in vain. Nor had any 
English people to whom we named these ever seen them 
in their country. Many had never so much as heard that 
such things were, and asked superciliously — " And are 
they really tolerable — eatable, you know ? " 

Our English boarders in Lucerne smiled, indulgent of 
our national peculiarities, — but very broadly — at seeing us 
one day at the pension-X.7!h\Q^ eat raw tomatoes as salad, with 
oil, vinegar, pepper and salt. They were set in the centre 
of the board as a part of the dessert, but our instructions to 
the waiters broke up the order of their serving. Madame 
and daughters confessed, afterward, that they w^ere not 



PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL. 389 

certain where they belonged, but had heard that Ameri- 
cans liked tomatoes, and so procured them. 

Matters mended, in these respects, as we moved south- 
ward. When the weather is too hot, and the climate too 
unwholesome for foreigners to tarry in Southern France 
and Italy, the natives revel in berries, peaches and melons. 
We ate delicious grapes in Florence as late as the first of 
December, and a few in Rome. By New Year's Day, not 
a bunch of fresh ones was exhibited in shops, at this time, 
filled with sour oranges, sweet, aromatic 7fiandarini^ medio- 
cre apples and drying nespoli and medlars. The nespoli, let 
me remark, is a hybrid between the date and plum, with 
an added cross of the persimmon. Indeed, it resembles 
this last in color and shape, also, in the acerbity that 
mingles with the acid of the unripe fruit. When fully 
matured they are very good, when partially dried, not un- 
like dates in appearance and flavor. Medlars are popular 
in England, and in request in Paris. To us, they were 
from first to last, disagreeable. To be candid, the taste 
and texture of the pulp were precisely those of rotten ap- 
ples. We thought them decayed, until told that they were 
only fully ripe. In these circumstances how tantalizing 
were reminiscences of Newtown and Albemarle pippins, of 
Northern Spy and Seek-no-further ! We could have sat 
us down on the pavement of the Piazza di Spagna, and, 
hidden by mountains of intolerably tart oranges, plained 
as did the mixed multitude at Taberah, that our souls were 
dried away in remembering the winter luxuries of which 
we did eat freely in our own land ; the Catawba, Isabella 
and Diana grapes, close packed in purple layers in neat 
boxes for family use, late pears and all-the-year-round 
sweet oranges ; plump, paly-green Malaga and amethyst 
Lisbon grapes, retailed at thirty and twenty-five cents per 
pound. Were we not now upon the same side of the ocean 



39P LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

with Lisbon and Malaga? It was nearly impossible to 
credit the scarcity of these sunbright lands in what we had 
so long received and enjoyed as everyday mercies to peo- 
ple of very moderate means. 

As to bananas, we did not see a dozen in two years. I 
did not taste one in all that time. Desiccated tomatoes 
and mushrooms are sold in Italian cities by the string. 
Canned vegetables are an American ^'notion." Brown, in 
the Via della Croce in Rome, had fresh oysters — American 
— for eighty cents a can. As the daintiest canned peas 
and the useful champignons are imported by United States 
grocers direct from France, it was odd that we could not 
have them, for the asking, in Switzerland and Italy. Escu- 
lents for salad grow there out of doors all winter, includ- 
ing several varieties not cultivated with us. Potatoes, 
spinach, rice, celery, — cooked and raw — onions, cabbage, 
cauliflower, macaroni, a root known as *' dog-fennel," and, 
— leading them all in the frequency of its appearing, but 
not, to most people's taste, in excellence, — artichokes — are 
the vegetable bill-of-fare. If there are eight courses at 
dinner, the probability is that but two of them will be veg- 
etables. An eight-course dinner on the Continent may be 
a very plain affair, important as it sounds, and the diner- 
out be hardly able to satisfy a healthy appetite 'though he 
partake of each dish. Soup is the first course ; — some- 
times, nourishing and palatable, — as often, thin and poor. 
Fish succeeds. If it be salmon, whitebait, whitings, soles 
or fresh sardines, it is usually good. But, beyond Paris, 
wx were rarely served on the Continent with any of these, 
except the last-named, that could be truthfully called, 
''fresh." The sardines of Naples and Venice, just from 
the water, are simply delicious. 

Meat comes next — a substantial dish, and an e7itree of 
some sort. These are separated by a course consisting of 



PERSONAL AND PRACTICAL. 39 f 

a single vegetable, potatoes or stewed celery or macaroni 
au gratiiiy or, perhaps, cauliflower with sauce tartar e. An-, 
other vegetable precedes the first meat-course. Salad fol- 
lows the second. Then, we have pastry or some other 
sweet, and dessert, meaning fruit, nuts and bon-bo7is. 
Finally, coffee. The dinner is a la Russe, no dishes being 
set upon the table, excepting the dessert. The carving is 
done in another room and the guests are not tempted to 
gluttony by the amount sei-ved to each. 

"If they would only give me a potato with my boiled 
fish ! " lamented an American to me, once. " Or serve the 
green peas with the lamb ! And mutton-chops and tomato- 
sauce are as naturally conjoined in the educated mind as 
the English q and tc ! " 

On the Continent the exception to the rule he objur- 
gated is the serving of chicken and salad— lettuce, endive 
or chervil,— together upon a hot plate. The vinegar and 
oil cool the chicken. The heated plate wilts and toughens 
the salad. Common sense might have foretold the result. 
But chicken-and-salad continue to hold their rank in 
the culinary succession, and are eaten without protest by 
those who are loudest in ridicule and condemnation of 
transatlantic solecisms. 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Home- life in Geneva — Ferney. 

lUR German experiences, sadly curtailed as to time 
by Boy's sickness, scarcely deserve the title of 
" loiterings." We passed two days in Strasburg , 
as many in Baden-Baden, a day and night at Schaffhau- 
sen ; a week in Heidelberg; a few hours at Basle, etc., 
etc., too much in the style of the conventional tourist to 
accord with our tastes or habits. At Heidelberg our forces 
were swelled by the addition of another family party, nearly 
allied to ours in blood and affection. There, we entered 
upon a three weeks' tour, a pleasant progress that had no 
mishap or interruption until we re-crossed the Alps into 
Switzerland, this time by the Briinig Pass, traveling as we 
had done over the St. Gothard, en famille, but in two 
diligences, instead of one, taking in Interlaken, The Staub- 
bach, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, the Wengernalp, Frei- 
burg, Bern and a host of other notable places and scenes, 
and brought up, in tolerable order, if somewhat travel- 
worn, at ten o'clock one September night, in Geneva. 

We were to disband here ; one family returning to Ger- 
many ; Miss M going on to Paris ; ourselves intending 

to winter again in Italy. I had enjoyed our month of swift 
and varied travel the more for the continual consciousness 
of the increase of health and strength that enabled me to 
perform it. But I had taken cold somewhere. The old 
cough and pain possessed me, and for these, said men 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA— FERNEY. 393 

medical and non-medical, Geneva was the worst place one 
could select in autumn or winter. The bise^ a strong, cold, 
west wind, blows there five days out of seven ; for weeks 
the sun is not visible for the fog ; rain-storms are frequent 
and severe, and the atmosphere is always chilled by the 
belt of snow-mountains. This was the meteorological rec- 
ord of the bright little city, supplied by those who should 
have known of that whereof they spoke. 

For three days after our arrival, it sustained this reputa- 
tion. The bise blew hard and incessantly, filling the air 
with dust-clouds and beating the lake into an angry sea 
that flung its waves clear across the Pont du Mont Blanc, 
the wide, handsome bridge, uniting the two halves of the 
city. I sat by the fire and coughed, furtively. Caput 
looked gravely resolute and wrote letters to Florence and 
Rome. Then, Euroclydon — or Bise^ — subsided into calm 
and sunshine, and we sallied forth, as do bees on early 
spring-days, to inspect the town — ''the richest and most 
popular in Switzerland." (Vide Baedeker.) 

The air was still cool, as was natural in the last week of 
September, but as exhilarating as iced champagne. Res- 
piration became suddenly easy, and motion, impulse, not 
duty. We walked up the Quai Eaux Vives to the first break- 
water that checks the too-heavy roll of the waves in stormy 
weather ; watched the wondrous, witching sheen of ultra- 
marine and emerald and pearly bands upon the blue lake ; 
down the broad quay by the English Gardens, through 
streets of maddening shop-windows, a brilliant display of 
all that most surely coaxes money from women's pockets ; — 
jewelry, mosaics, laces, carvings in wood and in ivory, pho- 
tographs, music-boxes,— a distracting medley, showed to 
best advantage by the crystalline atmosphere. We crossed 
to Rousseau's Island in the middle of the lake by a short 
chain-bridge attaching it to the Pont des Bergues, and fed 
17* 



394 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

the swans who live, eat and sleep upon the water ; marked 
the point where the Rhone shoots in arrowy flight from 
the crescent-shaped lake to its marriage with the slower 
Arve below the city. Thence, we wound by way of the 
Corraterie, a busy street, formerly a fosse, to the Botanical 
Gardens ; skirted the Bastions from which the Savoyards 
were thrown headlong at the midnight surprise of the 
''Escalade,"— and were in the ''Old Town." This is an 
enchanting tangle of narrow, excursive streets, going up 
and down by irregular flights of stone steps ; of antique 
houses with bulging upper stories and hanging balconies 
and archways, and courts with fountains where women 
come to draw water and stay to gossip and look pictu- 
resque, in dark, full skirts, red boddices and snowy caps. 
We passed between the National Cathedral of St. Pierre 
and the plain church where Pere Hyacinthe preached 
every Sabbath to crowds who admired his eloquence and 
had no sympathy with his chimerical Reformed Cathol- 
icism ; along more steep streets into a newer quarter, 
built up with handsome mansions, — across an open space, 
climbed a long staircase and were upon the hill on which 
stands the new Russian Church. 

It is a diminutive fabric, made the most of by a gilded 
dome and four gilt minarets, and by virtue of its situation, 
contrives to look twice as big as it is, and almost half as 
large as the old Cathedral which dates from 1024. 

Geneva was below us, and diverging from it in every 
direction, like veins from a heart, were series of villas, 
. chateaux and humbler homes, separated and environed by 
groves, pleasure-grounds and hedge-rows. The laughing 
lake, which seldom wears the same expression for an hour 
at a time, was dotted with boats that had not ventured out 
of harbor while the wind-storm prevailed. Most of these 
carried the pretty lateen sail. The illusion of these " goose- 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA — FERNEY. 395 

winged " barques is perfect and beautiful, especially when 
a gentle swell of the waves imparts to them the flutter of 
birds just dipping into, or rising from the surface ; — birds 
statelier than the swans, more airy than the grebe circling 
above and settling down upon the Pierres dit Niton. These 
are two flat boulders near the shore whereon tradition says 
Julius Caesar once sacrificed to Neptune, — probably to 
propitiate the genius of the bise. Across the water and 
the strip of level country, a few miles in breadth, were the 
Juras, older than the Alps, but inferior in grandeur, their 
crests already powdered with snow. On our side of the 
lake behind town and ambitious little church, — outlying 
campagnes (country-seats) and dozens of villa.ges, arose the 
dark, horizontal front of the Saleve. It is the barrier that 
excludes from Geneva the view of the chain of Alps visible 
from its summit. Mont Blanc overtops it, and, to the left 
of its gleaming dome, the Aiguilles du Midi pierce the sky. 
Others of the ''Mont Blanc Group" succeed, carrying on 
the royal line as far as the unaided eye can reach. Be- 
tween these and the city rises the Mole, a rugged pyramid 
projecting boldly from the plain, 

Chamouny, the Mer de Glace, Martigny, Lausanne, 
Vevay, Chillon, Coppet, Ferney! To all these Geneva 
was the key. And in itself it was so fair ! 

We talked less confidently of Italian journeyings, as we 
descended the hill ; more doubtfully with each day of fine 
weather and rapidly-returning strength. Still, we had no 
definite purpose of wintering in Geneva, contrary to the 
advice of physicians and friends. It was less by our own 
free will than in consequence of a chain of coincident 
events, which would be tedious in the telling, that Decem- 
ber saw us, somewhat to our astonishment, settled in the 
" Pension Magnenat," studying and working as systemati- 
cally as if Italy were three thousand watery miles away. 



39^ LblTERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

That a benignant Providence detained us six months in 
this place we recognize cheerfully and thankfully. I ques- 
tion if Life has in reserve for us another half-year as care- 
free and as evenly happy. There are those who rate Geneva 
as ''insufferably slow;" the "stupidest town on the Con- 
tinent," '' devoid of society except a m'dee of Arabs, or the 
stiffest of exclusive cliques." Our American ''clique" 
may have been exceptionally congenial that year, but it 
supplied all we craved, or had leisure to enjoy of social in- 
tercourse. Foreigners who remain there after the middle 
of December, do so with an object. The facilities for in- 
struction in languages, music and painting are excellent. 
Lectures, scientific and literary, are given throughout the 
season by University professors and other savans. The 
prices of board and lessons are moderate, and — an impor- 
tant consideration with us and other families of like views 
and habits — Sabbath-school and church were easy of access 
and well-conducted. 

There were no "crush " parties, and had they been held 
nightly, our young people were too busy with better things 
to attend them. But what with music and painting-classes ; 
German and French "evenings;" reading-clubs in the 
English classics ; the "five o'clock tea" served every af- 
ternoon in our salon for all who would come, and of which 
we never partook alone ; what with Thanksgiving Dinner 
and Christmas merry-making, when our rooms were bow- 
ers of holly and such luxuriant mistletoe as we have never 
seen elsewhere ; with New Year Reception and birth-day 
" surprise ; " daily walks in company, and, occasionally a 
good concert, our happy-family-hood grew and flourished 
until each accepted his share in it as the shelter of his 
own vine and fig-tree. We were a lively coterie, even 
without the divertissements of the parties of pleasure we 
got up among ourselves to Coppet, Ferney, Chillon and 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA— FERNEY. 397 

the Saleve. Shall we ever again have such pic-nics as 
those we made to the top of the Grand Saleve — our obser- 
vatory-mountain, driving out to the base in strong, open 
wagons, then ascending on foot or on donkeys ? 

There are those who will read this page with smiles 
chastened by tender thoughts of vanished joys, as one by 
one, the salient features of those holiday excursions recur 
to mind. Donkeys that would not go, and others that 
would not stop. The insensate oaf of a driver who walk- 
ed far ahead of the straggling procession and paid no at- 
tention to the calls of bewildered women. The volunteer 
squad of the stronger sex who strode between the riders 
and the precipice, and beat back the beasts when they 
sheered dangerously close to the edge. The gathering of 
the whole company for rest and survey of the valley, at 
the stone cross half-way up. The explorations of strag- 
gling couples in quest of '^ short cuts " to the crown of 
the upper hill, and their return to the main road by help 
of the bits of paper they had attached to twigs on their 
way into the labyrinth of brushwood and stones. . Who of 
us can forget the luncheons eaten under the three forlorn 
trees that feigned to shade the long, low hut on the sum- 
mit ? When, no matter how liberal our provision, some- 
thing always gave out before the onward rush of appetites 
quickened by the keen air ? How we devoured black 
bread bought in the Chalet where we had our coffee boiled, 
and thought it sweeter than Vienna rolls ! Do you re- 
member — friends beloved — now so sadly and widely sun- 
dered — the basket of dried thistles proffered gravely, on 
one occasion, and to whom, when the cry for " bread " was 
unseemly in vociferation and repetition ? And that, when 
our hunger was appeased, we, on a certain spring day, 
roamed over the breast of the mighty mount, gathering 
gentians, yellow violets, orchis and scraggy sprays of haw- 



398 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

thorn, sweet with flowers, until tired and happy, we all sat 
down on the moss-cushions of the highest rocks, and look- 
ed at Mont Blanc — so near and yet so far, — stern, pure, 
impassive, — and hearkened to the cuckoo's song? 

I know, moreover, because I recollect it all so well, that 
you have not forgotten the as dear delights of talking over 
scene and adventure and mishap — comic, and that only in 
the rehearsal, — on the next rainy afternoon. When we 
circled about the wood-fire, tea-cups in hand, raking open 
the embers and laying on more fuel that we might see 
each others' faces, yet not be obliged to light the lamps 
while we could persuade ourselves that it was still the twi- 
light-hour. We kept no written record of the merry say- 
ings and witty repartees and "capital" stories of those 
impromptu conversaziones, but they are all stored up in 
our memories, — other, and holier passages of our inter- 
course, where they will be yet more faithfully kept— in our 
hearts. 

If I am disposed to dwell at unreasonable length upon 
details that seem vapid and irrelevant to any other read- 
ers, I cry them, " pardon." The lapse may be overlooked 
in one whose life cannot show many such peaceful sea- 
sons ; to whom the time and opportunity to renew health 
and youth beside such still waters had not been granted 
in two decades. 

Rome was rest. Geneva was recuperation. I have lik- 
ened the air of Switzerland to iced champagne. But the 
buoyancy begotten by it had no reaction : the vigor was 
stable. I had not quite appreciated this fact when, at 
Lucerne, I talked with fair tourists from my own land 
who '' would have died of fatigue," if compelled to walk a 
couple of miles, at home, yet boasted, and truly, of having 
tramped up the Rigi and back — a distance of three leagues. 
But when I walked upon my own feet into Geneva after 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA— FERNEY. 399 

an afternoon at Ferney, and experienced no evil effects 
from the feat, we began to discredit scientific analyses, 
dealing with the preponderance of ozone in the atmos- 
phere, and to revert to tales of fountains of perpetual 
youth and the Elixir of Life. 

The town of Ferney is a mean village four miles-and-a- 
half from Geneva, and over the French frontier. The 
chateau is half-a-mile further; — a square, two-storied 
house set in extensive and handsome grounds, gardens, 
lawn, park and wood. It is now the property of a French 
gentleman who uses it as a country-seat, his chief resi- 
dence being in Paris. A liveried footman opened the 
gate at the clang of the bell and showed two apartments 
that remain as Voltaire left them. These are on the first 
floor, the entrance-hall, or salo7i, being the largest. The 
floor is of polished wood inlaid in a cubic pattern. An 
immense stove of elaborate workmanship stands against 
the left wall ; a monument of black and gray marble in a 
niche to the right. A tablet above the urn on the top of 
this odd construction is inscribed : — 



*'■ Mon esprit est partout, 
Mon ccEur est ici." 



Below is the very French legend : — '^ Mes manes sont con- 
soles^ puisque mon ccEur est an milieu de vous." 

*^ The stove of Voltaire ! His monument ! " pronounced 
the servant in slow, distinct accents. 

" But his heart is not really there ?" 

" But no, monsieur. He is interred in Paris. Madame 
comprehends that this is only an epitaph." 

Inferentially, — a lie. 

Pictures hung around the room ; one remarkable etch- 
ing of *' Voltaire and his friends;" old engravings and 



400 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

some paintings of little value. The furniture, of the stiff- 
est order of the antique, was covered with faded em- 
broidery. 

'^ The work of Madame du Chatelet, the niece of Vol- 
taire," continued the footman, demurely. 

The next room was his bed-chamber. A narrow bed, 
head and foot-board covered with damask to match the 
arras ; more embroidered chairs from the niece's hand, 
and, just opposite the door, a portrait of Voltaire, painted 
at the age of twenty-five. A dapper, curled, and be-frilled 
dandy of the era that produced Chateauneuf, Ninon de 
I'Enclos and Chaulieu. The visage is already disfigured 
by the smirk of self-satisfaction he intended should be 
cynical, which gives to the bust in the outer apartment, 
and to sketched and engraved likenesses, taken in mature 
manhood and old age, the look of a sneering monkey. 
Close to the young Voltaire hung the portrait of Madame 
du Chatelet. 

*' The niece of Voltaire ! " reiterated the serving-man, 
pointedly. 

There could then be no impropriety in our prolonged 
survey of the beautiful face. She was the mistress of a 
fine fortune and chateau at Cirey, when Voltaire sought a 
retreat in the neighborhood from governmental wrath, 
excited by his eulogistic ^^ Lettres sur les Anglais.'* She 
was the ablest mathematician of her time, revelling in 
the abstruse metaphysics and political economics which 
were Voltaire's delight, and so thorough a Latinist that 
she read the ^^ Principia'' in Latin from choice. Her 
husband was much older than herself, an officer in the 
French army, and thus furnished with an excuse for ab- 
senteeism from the society of a woman too much his supe- 
rior mentally to be an agreeable help-meet. The Platonic 
attachment between the accomplished chatelaine and the 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA — FERNEY. 401 

poet-satirist lasted nineteen years. He was thirty-six 
when it began. Her death broke what little heart he 
had. There is a story that he sent his confidential valet 
into the room where her corpse lay, the night after her 
demise, to take from her hand a ring he had given her, 
long ago, containing his miniature. When it was brought 
to him, he kissed it passionately, and, before fitting it upon 
his own finger, touched the spring of the seal concealing 
the picture. It was not his, but the handsomer face of a 
younger man, that met his eyes, one who had bowed, she 
would have had Voltaire believe, hopelessly, at her feet. 
The duped lover bore the dead woman no malice for her 
perfidy, if the contents of the Ferney apartments be ad- 
mitted as evidence. On the mantel in the bedroom is a 
glass case, covering the model designed by him for her 
sarcophagus. The flat door of the tomb is cleft in twain 
by the rising figure of the woman, holding in her arms the 
babe that cost her life and was buried with her. 

The Philosopher's Walk, Voltaire's favorite promenade, 
is nearly a hundred yards in length, and completely em- 
bowered by pollarded limes, the lateral branches meeting 
and interlacing over the broad alley. From the parapet 
of the adjoining terrace can be had, on clear days, a mag- 
nificent view, comprehending the Bernese Alps, the Juras, 
the Aiguilles and their crowned Monarch — Mont Blanc — 
by day, a silver dome, — at the rising and going down of the 
sun, a burning altar of morning and evening sacrifice. 

*' In sight of this, the Man of Ferney could say — 'There 
is no God ! ' " interjected an indignant voice, while we 
hung, entranced^ over the wall. 

*'The ' Coryphaeus of Deism ' never said it ! " answered 
Caput. " His last words, — after he had, to secure for his 
meagre body the rites of Mother Church, signed a confes- 
sion of faith in her tenets — were, — 'I die, worshiping 



402 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, but de- 
testing superstition.' " 

The philosopher had, presently, another and more en- 
thusiastic defender. I had tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain 
a photograph of the little church outside the gate of the 
chateau. Albeit no artist, except for my own convenience 
and amusement, I resolved to have something that should 
look like the interesting relic. While my companions 
strayed down the pleached walk into the woods, I returned 
to the entrance, sat down upon the grassy bank opposite 
the church-front and began to sketch. There was no one 
in sight when I selected my position, but, pretty soon, a 
party of three — two ladies and a gentleman — emerged 
from the gate and stopped within earshot for a parting 
look at the lowly sanctuary, now a granary. 

The Traveling American dashes at dead languages as 
valiantly as at living. 

^'' Deo erexit Voltau'c " is cut into a small tablet below the 
belfry. 

Will it be believed that I heard, actually and literally, 
the conversation I now write down ? 

''/call that blasphemous !" 

The speaker was a lady, in dress and deportment. 

'' Heaven-daring blasphemy ! " she added, in a low, hor- 
rified tone, reading the Latin aloud. 

''I don't see that — exactly," answered a deeper voice. 
" It is strange that an infidel, such as Voltaire is usually 
considered, should build a church at all, but there is noth- 
ing wrong " 

'' But look at the inscription ! ' God erects it to Voltah'e.'' 
Horrible ! " 

" I doubt if that is quite the right translation, my love" 
" — began the spouse. 

The lady caught him up — ''I may not be a classical 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA — FERNEY. 403 

scholar, but I hope I can read, and I am not altogether 
ignorant of Latin. And Baedeker says it is an ' ostenta- 
tious inscription.' I suppose Baedeker knows what he is 
talking about — if I do not ! " 

They walked off down the lane. 

Voltaire built the church for the use of his servants and 
tenantry. The Bishop refused to consecrate it, and Vol- 
taire created a Bishopric of Ferney. . The priest was paid 
by him and was often one of the chateau-guests. Upon 
Sabbath mornings, it was the master's habit to march into 
church, attended by visitors and retainers, and engage, with 
outward decorum, in the service. Religious ceremonies 
were a necessity for the vulgar and ignorant, as were 
amusements. He provided for both needs on the same 
principle. 

The building is of stone, with sloping roof and two shed- 
like wings joined to the central part. A small clock-tower 
is capped by a weather-cock. There is but one door, now 
partly boarded up. Over this is a single large window 
with a Norman arch. It was a perfect October afternoon, 
dreamy and soft. Chestnuts and limes were yet in full 
leaf ; the garden was gay with flowers untouched by a 
breath of frost. I had my turfy bank all to myself for half 
an hour, and in the stillness, could hear the hum of the 
bees in the red and white clover of the meadow behind 
me, the voices of men and women in the vineyard, three 
fields away. It was the vintage-season and they were hav- 
ing rare weather for it. Heavy steps grated upon the 
road ; were checked so near me that I looked up. The 
intruder was a peasant in faded "blue shirt and trowsers, a 
leather belt, a torn straw hat and wooden shoes, and carried 
a scythe upon his shoulder. A son of the soil, who grinned 
and touched his hat when I saw him. 
^^ Pardon, madame ! " 



404 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

I nodded and went on with my work. He stood as still 
as the church, — an indigo shadow between me and the sky. 
I glanced at him again, this time, inquiringly. 

" Pardon^ mada?ne ! " 

He was respectful, and had he been rude, I could call 
through the gate to my friends who were walking in the 
grounds. There was nothing to alarm me in his proximity, 
but a certain annoyance at his oversight of my occupation. 

''Are you one of the laborers on the estate ? " asked I, 
coldly. 

" Madame is right. I am the farm-servant of M. David." 

Who, it was so evident, did not suspect that he was 
impolite in watching me that I forgave him. 

"I am only making a little sketch of the church,"-! 
deigned to explain. 

^^ Est-ce que je vous gene, Madame?'' said the "clod," 
deprecatingly. " If so, I will go. I am an ignorant peas- 
ant and I never, until now, saw a picture make itself." 

Upon receiving permission to remain, he lowered his 
scythe and stood leaning upon it, while the poor little 
picture "made itself." To put him at his ease, I asked 
who built the church. 

" M. Voltaire. My grandfather has told me of him." 

"What of him?" 

" That he built Ferney and would have made of it a 
great city — much finer than Geneva — perhaps as grand as 
Paris. Who knows ? And free, Madame ! He w^ould have 
had all the people hereabouts " — waving his hand to indi- 
cate a circuit of miles — "free, and learned, and happy. 
He was a wise man — this M. Voltaire ! un sibon Protestafit I " 

" Protestant ! " 

" Afai's, Old, parfaitement, Madame ! He hated the priests. 
He succored many distressed Protestants. He was, with- 
out doubt, a good Christian." 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA— FERNEY, 405 

I recollected Calas and Sirven, and refrained from pole- 
mics. 

'' Ferney is free, now that France is a Republic. You 
vote, and so govern yourselves." 

My friend was out of soundings. '''' Plait-ilV^ staring 
imbecilely. Then, pulling his thoughts together — ''Mad- 
ame is right. France is a great country. She demands 
many soldiers. Conscripts are taken every year from 
Ferney. It may be I shall go, one day. Unless I can lose 
these two front teeth, or, by accident, cut off this finger.'* 

He had his inquiry when the sketch was done. 

''The pictures one sees on the walls in Geneva — beasts 
and people — red and blue and many colors — that are to 
play in the spectacles — are they made like that ? " 

I laughed — "They are printed," — then, as the difficulty 
of enlightening him on the subject of lithography struck 
me, I added — "Somebody makes the drawing first." 

He shook his head compassionately. " I never knew 
how much of work they were ! Ah ! I shall always think 
of it when I see them. And of the poor people who draw 
them 1 " 

'"'■ Les Delices'' — Voltaire's home in Geneva prior to his 
purchase of Ferney, is now a girls' boarding-school. We 
had friends there, and were, through the kindness of the 
Principal, allowed free access to the grounds and such 
apartments as retained traces of Voltaire's residence. The 
house is large and rambling, and Voltaire's dressing- and 
bed-rooms are, as at Ferney, upon the ground-floor. The 
frescoes are fairly distinct, as yet, and the carved mantels 
unaltered. One long wing is unused and closed. This 
was the private theatre that shattered, at last, and forever, 
the brittle friendship between Voltaire and Rousseau. 

" You have basely corrupted my Republic ! " was the 
angry protest of the author of "Za Nouvelle Helo'ise." 



406 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Voltaire retorted by satire, caustic and pointed ; — some 
say, with the famous sarcasm upon the Canton of Geneva, 
which is but fifteen miles square : — 

''When I shake my wig, I powder the whole Repub- 
lic ! " 

The theatre was built, in spite of Rousseau's remon- 
strances ; actors brought from naughty Paris, and compli- 
mentary tickets for the first representation sent to the 
magnates of Calvin's city. Not one of these, from the 
Mayor down to the constable, had any intention of going. 
All were thrilled with horror at the suspicion that some 
weak brother might be allured by the forbidden fruit. 
All were curious to know who the recreant would be, and 
burning with jealousy for the purity of the public morals. 
Early in the afternoon of the appointed day, loungers and 
spies stationed themselves on the bridge and road by 
which the delinquents must pass to Les Delices. The cor- 
don lengthened and spread until the throng at Voltaire's 
gates pressed back upon those pouring out of the city. 
When the theater-doors were opened, the crowd rushed in, 
still moved by pietistic and patriotic fervor ; the seats were 
filled and the curtain rose. 

Reckoning shrewdly upon the revulsion of the human 
nature he knew so well, Voltaire sent privily to the Cathe- 
dral of St. Pierre for the triangular chair of Calvin pre- 
served there, with holy care, and introduced it among the 
stage-properties in the last scene. The Genevese munici- 
pality recognized it immediately, as did the rest of the 
spectators, but so intoxicated were they by now with the 
novel draught of ''corrupting" pleasure, that they actu- 
ally applauded its appearance ! 

We heard this stor^^ from the lips of the Lady-Principal 
of the J)ensionnat, upon the threshold of the barred doors 
of the theatre. Groups of girls sat under the spreading 



HOME-LIFE IN GENEVA— FERNEY. 407 

chestnuts ; walked, arm-in-arm, up and down the avenues. 
The casements of the old house were open to the warm 
air. Boy, who had accompanied us, in defiance of the or- 
dinance excluding young gentlemen, was the cynosure of 
the merry band, and being spoiled faster than usual by 
offerings of flowers, confectionery, kisses and coaxing 
flatteries. 

A faintly- worn path beyond the theatre marks ''Voltaire's 
Walk." It is shaded by a double row of splendid trees, and 
at the far end is a mossy stone bench on which he used to 
sit. It was easy for Fancy to conjure up the picture of what 
might have been there on the morrow of the theater-open- 
ing, and the image of him who was the life of the party, 
glorying insolently in their triumph. The meager figure 
wrapped in the gorgeous dressing-gown, remembered still 
at LesDelices — the sardonic smirk that poisoned equivoque 
and epigram ; the Du Chatelet's lover-comrade ; the friend 
and slanderer of Frederick the Great ; the pupil of the 
Jesuits, and the bon Chretiejt^ who "hated the priests ; " the 
philosopher, who died, worshiping his Maker, and at peace 
with the world, — but who had, living, feared not God, 
neither regarded Man ! 




CHAPTER XXIX. 

Calvin — The Diodati House — Primroses, 

HE house in which Calvin lived and died has never 
been photographed. " Madame does not reflect 
how narrow is the street ! " pleaded the picture- 
dealer to whom I expressed my surprise at this. 

But the camera would have been set up in one of the 
windows across the way had there been a lively demand 
upon the thrifty Swiss for mementoes of the Reformer. 
John Calvin is out of fashion on the Continent, and Gen- 
eva is not an exception to the prevalent obsoleteness of 
reverence for his character and doctrines. 

^'' Fanatiqtie ! '' ejaculated a Genevese lady who wor- 
shiped statedly in the Protestant Cathedral, and called 
herself '^devote." 

Our friend Mrs. G the artist, par excellence, of our 

happy family, had made an excellent copy of an original 
portrait of Calvin which M. Reviliod had, as an especial 
favor, lent her from his fine collection of pictures, a com- 
pliment of which we were proud for her. Herself the 
daughter of a clergyman who had fought a good fight for 
the truth as he held it, she had copied the picture con amore. 

" I have lived in Calvin's age — not in this, while I 
painted," she said when I looked into her parlor to see 
how the work was getting on. "An age that needed such 
men ! The face is not lovely in any sense, but I have laid 



CALVIN. 409 

in each stroke tenderly. My father used to say that the 
Church at large owes more to-day to John Calvin than to 
any other one man who ever lived." 

The face was, as she had said, not lovely. It was not 
benign. The hollow temples, deep-set eyes ; the small, 
resolute mouth were the lineaments of an ascetic whose 
warfare with the world, the flesh and the devil — and the 
church he conceived in his honest, stubborn soul to be a 
compound of all three — was to the death. He wore the 
Genevan cap and gown, the latter trimmed with fur. His 
black beard was long, but scanty. One thin hand was lifted 
slightly in exhortation. A man of power, he was one whom 
not many would dare to love. 

** Greater in thought and in action than Luther ; as brave 
as Zwingli ; as zealous as Knox ! " pursued his admirer, 
touching the canvas lightly with her brush, as if reluctant 
to demit the work. *' Ah, mademoiselle ! " to the entering 
visitor, the Genevese Protestant aforesaid. *' You are just 
in time to see my finished Calvin ! " 

Then, the Genevese said, with a grimace, '''' Fanatique ! 
Mot, je detest e cet homme ! " 

If she had been one man, the artist another — (and unre- 
generate) I am afraid the predestined portion of the last 
speaker would have been a blow of the maul-stick. 

The Genevese have swung completely around the circle 
in three hundred years. 

" They would be insupportable to me, and I to them 1 " 
replied Calvin to the recall of the Council after his two 
years of banishment. 

But how earnestly he served them and Protestantism in 
the quarter-century that intervened from the time of the 
refusal and the months during which he lay ''long a-dy- 
ing " in the strait Rue des Chanoines, almost in the shadow 
of the Cathedral ! 
18 



410 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

The ground-floor and part of the second-story of the 
''plain house provided for him," are now used as a dis- 
pensary and doctor's office, — a charitable institution. A 
placard at the door sets forth the hours at which patients 
can be admitted to the consulting-rooms. After Calvin's 
death, and until within a few years, it was occupied as a 
convent and school by a Roman Catholic sisterhood. The 
building is of brick and ''plain" to humbleness, two 
stories in height, and built around four sides of an open 
court. We saw the closet in which Calvin studied and 
wrote — so overwhelmed by preparations for the pulpit, the 
university lecture-room, and with voluminous correspond- 
ence with churches at home and abroad, that he passed 
whole nights without laying by his pen, and, by day, had 
not, he says, " time to look up to the light of the blessed 
sun ; " — and the chamber in w^hich he died. This is low- 
ceiled and of fair size, wainscoted with dark wood. Over 
the doors are paneled paintings representing the Four 
Seasons. These were there during Calvin's occupancy, as 
was the carved mantel of black oak. Two windows open 
upon a balcony hung thickly with ivy. 

One speculates fruitlessly touching the incidents of the 
private life of him of whom it was said that " he was never 
for one day unfaithful to his apostolate." We questioned 
the woman who showed us the house and who said she 
was a Protestant, — hoping to glean some interesting local 
traditions. But she knew nothing beyond her lesson — a 
brief and a dry one. We longed to know if in this aparJtment 
came and went the child whose biography is comprised by 
the father in one line : — 

" God gave us a little son. He took him away." 

The mother who "always aided, never opposed" her 
husband, surA- ived the boy eight years. Calvin never mar- 
ried again. Henceforward, his earthly ties were the Re- 



CALVIN. 411 

formed Church and Geneva. *' I offer to my God my 
slain heart as a sacrifice, forcing myself to obedience 
to His will," became the motto of a life that had, no 
more, in it the sweet elements of home-happiness and 
repose. 

The sun set while we stood upon the balcony, the room 
behind us growing darker and more desolately-silent, 
while the heavens brightened, ruddying the tiled roofs 
and time-stained walls of the *'01d Town " in which the 
house stands. The wife may have sat here at even-tide, 
thinking of the babe that was coming to cheer her lonely, 
frugal dwelling, and, in those eight childless years, of the 
little son God took away. Her husband had no time for 
loverly converse or sad reverie — with his daily sermon 
every other week ; his Theology lectures ; his semi-weekly 
Consistory-meeting ; his written controversies with Uni- 
tarians and Anabaptists, and the government, in all its de- 
tails, of a municipality that owned him Dictator of letter 
and of spirit. 

^' Geneva " — ^wrote Knox to a friend during a visit to Cal- 
vin's model town — " is the most perfect school of Christ 
the world has seen since the days of the Apostles.'' 

Scoffers said that Calvin resisted the Divine decree in 
his own case when the physicians pronounced him to be 
dying from seven mortal diseases. When he could no 
longer eat or sit up, he dictated, between the paroxysms of 
nausea and faintness, letters to all parts of Europe to one 
scribe, comments upon the Book of Joshua to another. 
He fainted in the pulpit, his sermon unfinished, the last 
time he was carried to the Cathedral. One month before 
his death, the most eminent medical authorities in Switzer- 
land declaring that he could not survive a day longer, 
civil and ecclesiastical officers were collected to receive 
his solemn farewell. Still he lived — in such agony of 



412 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

body as chills the blood to read of, but in calm joyfulness 
of soul, until the end of May, almost four months after the 
Sabbath when he was brought back from the Cathedral 
fainting — it was believed, in a dying condition. The Bat- 
tle of Life was with him a favorite figure in speech and 
writings. How he fought it until the last drop of blood 
was drained from his veins and heart is worthily told by 
Theodore Beza. 

His handsome face hangs near Calvin's in the Reviliod 
Gallery. So genial and debomiaire does this one of the Re- 
formers look that we marvel — not at the charge of French 
levity brought against him by certain of his confreres — but 
that he should have loved so well his stern, joyless brother- 
in-arms. Yet gentle Melanchthon sighs, oppressed by the 
conviction that *' Old Adam is too strong for young Me- 
lanchthon," — '*If I could but lay my weary head upon 
thy " (Calvin's) '' faithful heart and die there ! " 

Beza carries his affectionate partizanship so far as to 
defend the burning of Servetus for obstinate heresy, by 
the Genevan authorities. Men have chosen to execrate 
Calvin as the author of an act which was in exact accord- 
ance with the temper of the State-Church at that time. 
The Council of Geneva, after long and stirring debate, 
and much advisement with other Cantons, condemned 
the Spanish heretic-physician to the stake as a political 
necessity. Farel was earnest in advocating this extreme 
penalty of the law, and exhorted him, at the place of exe- 
cution, to recantation. Melanchthon gave it unqualified, 
if sorrowful sanction, as did Bullinger. The one voice 
raised against the horrible cruelty was Calvin's. He 
pleaded, vainly — since the man must die — that he should 
be beheaded, not burnt. 

The Genevese declare they do not know ''just where" 
this violation of the avowed principles of Protestantism 



CALVIN. 413 

occurred. The burning-place was upon the Champel, a 
pretty green hill, south of the city. 

Of Calvin, guide-books and travelers have long asserted 
— '' No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." The 
truth being that, several years ago, careful measurement 
of the cemetery of Plain Palais, and examination of the 
record of his burial, pointed out the locality he desired 
should be forgotten lest a costly monument might dis- 
honor the memory of the poverty he had borne for Christ's 
sake. His bones rest not many rods from the wall of the 
burial-ground. A lofty hemlock grows directly upon the 
grave. The boughs have been torn off by relic-hunters as 
far up as a tall man can reach. A sloping stone of gray 
granite, a foot square and about as tall at the highest side, 
is lettered, "J. C." That is all. There is no mound to 
warn aside the unwary foot, although the graves about it 
are carefully kept, distinguished by memorial-tablets and 
adorned with flowers. Upon his return from Strasbourg, 
in compliance with the prayers of Geneva — Canton and 
town — the people gave him, in addition to the '* plain 
house," a " piece of cloth for a coat." The bald covering 
of earth is all he would accept from them in death. 

Plain Palais is a dismal last home even for John Calvin. 
Low, flat and damp on the sunniest days, it is a pity it 
should not be, as Baedeker describes it — "disused." But 
one passes on the route to Calvin's grave, the gorgeous 
red granite tomb of the Duke of Brunswick who be- 
queathed his wealth to the city. And in our numerous 
visits to the cemetery we rarely went in or out without 
meeting a funeral train. The paths are greened by moss- 
slime, and the short winter afternoons are briefer and 
gloomier for the mists that begin to rise here by four 
o'clock. 

Very different in location and aspect is the grave of the 



414 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

historian of the Reformation, Merle d'Aubigne. The walk 
up the quay took us past his former residence, a comfort- 
able homestead, now occupied by his widow. Leaving the 
lake-edge, about half-a-mile from the town, we turned to 
the left into a crooked road paved with cobble-stones. 
High walls, covered with ivy and capped by the foliage of 
fine old trees, rooted within the grounds, seclude on both 
sides of the way the campagjies of wealthy Genevese who 
desert them in the winter for the confined streets and 
noise of the city. A brook of clear water, issuing from 
the wall, runs gaily down to the lake. The road winds 
irregularly up the hill, yet so sharply that we were content 
to rest on the brow, and, sitting upon a wayside bench, en- 
joy the view of Lake Leman and the Juras on one hand, 
the Mont Blanc chain of Alps upon the other. The small 
cemetery was gained by an abrupt turn to the right and 
another rise. It is enclosed on all sides by a brick wall, 
entered through strong iron gates, and, we judged from 
the lack of traces of recent occupancy, was in truth *' dis- 
used." D'Aubigne is buried in a corner remote from the 
gate. Some of his kindred sleep within the enclosure, 
but none near him. We had read the names of others of 
the noble race upon mural brasses in the old Cathedral. 
He selected the spot of his interment '•'' that he might rise 
in sight of Mont Blanc at the Last Day." 

So runs the story. It was impressive, told, as w^e heard 
it, grouped about the grave, the solemn, eternal whiteness 
of the mountain in full view. A profile of the historian in 
bas-relief is upon the head-stone. Climbing roses bound 
this and the mound with lush withes of grayish-crimson 
and pale-green, and plumes of golden-rod nodded over his 
head. The ancient wall is hung and heaped with ivy, as 
common in Geneva and the neighborhood as the grass 
and field- flowers. 



DIODATI HOUSE. 415 

We never knew when we had walked far enough in 
Switzerland. On this afternoon we extended our ramble a 
mile further up the lake beyond the cemetery, keeping upon 
the ridge of the range, to the Diodati House. It is one of 
the old family seats that stud the hill-sides in all directions. 
Milton was here a welcome guest for months, and under 
the patronage of the Diodati, a French translation of '' Para- 
dise Lost " was printed. A degenerate son of the house, 
upon a visit to England, became intimate with a poet 
of different mold. When Byron left his native land after 
the separation from his wife, he accepted the invitation of 
young Diodati to his ancestral home. The host became 
so enamored of his guest's society that he assigned to him 
a suite of apartments overlooking the lake, as his own, 
so long as he would honor him by occupying them. Shel- 
ley had rooms in the neighboring village of Cologny. 
The balcony before the second-story front windows is 
designated as the habitual lounging-place of the two at 
sunset and through moonlight evenings. The morals of 
Diodati the younger were not amended by the companion- 
ships of the year spent by Byron in the enjoyment of his 
hospitality. Tales of the orgies of the comrades are still 
rife in the region, to the shame of all three. From this 
balcony Byron witnessed the thunderstorm by night upon 
Lake Leman, described in the third canto of Childe Harold, 
written at the Diodati House. Its pictures of the lake- 
scenery are faithful and beautiful. The opening lines 
recur to the memory of the least poetical tourist who has 
ever read them, when he reclines, as we did on that day, 
and many others, on the lawn before the mansion. 



" Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing, 
Which warns me with its stillness, to forsake 



4l6 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from distraction. Once I loved 

Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved 
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved." 

Shelley's second wife, Mary WoUstonecraft, was with her 
husband, and about the English party collected a jovial 
company of both sexes for whom the Diodati homestead 
was the rendezvous. At the close of the year they jour- 
neyed southward to Ravenna, to Pisa and to Spezzia, near 
which latter place Shelley and Williams were drowned. 

The old house is very peaceful now in restored respecta- 
bility. A very Quaker of a ca??tpagne, in faded dove-color 
and broad-brimmed roof, it is square-built like Ferney, 
and without tower or battlement. So English is its ex- 
pression of home-comfort in spacious rooms, spreading 
lawn and clumps of shade-trees, that Byron must have had 
recalled to him continually the land he affected to despise 
and hate. 

In the Spring, we found our earliest primroses in the 
Diodati grounds. We had never seen them growing wild 
before, and emulous parties sallied forth, every day, for 
fresh spoils of these and the fragrant purple violets, un- 
known to American fields. A w^eek later, the meadows 
upon the left bank of the lake were yellow as gold with 
them. But on the day of my first primrose-hunt they had 
just begun to show their straw-colored faces, and so ten- 
tatively that our quest had to be close and keen. We — 
two of us — strayed into the grounds of a closed country- 
house on a warm March afternoon, not sanguine of suc- 
cess after the assurances of sundry laborers and rosy- 
cheeked nurses whom we had met and catechized, that 
*'^ les primeveres'' were never found thereabouts. The day 



PRIMROSES. 417 

before, two of ''our girls" had come in to five o'clock 
tea, with handfuls of the pale beauties picked in the Di- 
odati woods, so we knew they were above-ground. The 

lawn chosen by my friend J and myself, as the scene 

of our trespass, was level and open to the sun, except where 
branchy limes and tent-like chestnuts made cool retreats 
for the "summer-days a-coming." The turf was so deep, 
our feet sank into it, so elastic, it was a joy to tread it. 
We had gone perhaps twenty yards from the entrance-gates 
when something smiled up suddenly at us, as if it had, 
that instant, broken ground. We were down upon our 
knees in a second, tugging so hard at the prize that the 
tender stems snapped close to the flowers. Then, per- 
ceiving that the stalks were long as well as frail, we dug 
down through the turf with our gloved fingers, parasol- 
handles, hair-pins — anything that might penetrate to the 
root. Not a stick was visible upon the neat lawn. Being 
only two women, we had not a pocket-knife between us. 
I would not declare that we would not have used our teeth 
had nothing better offered, so excited were we over our 
treasure-trove. They shone at us above the sward on all 
sides, after we espied that one cluster. The depth of the 
roots below the surface is amazing. Our digging and 
scraping assumed the dignity of scientific excavations by 
the time we had filled handkerchiefs and veils. 

The uprooted primroses did not lose their character for 
bravery. Embedded in a bank of moss laid within a dish, 
and supplied with moisture, they lived for days, unfurling 
buds and leaves as assiduously as if the teeming bulk of 
their native earth had underlain them, subject to the call 
of the torn fibers. Our '' primrose-bank," renewed again 
and again in the season of their bloom, was a cherished 
feature of our salon^ that happy Spring-time. The fra- 
grance is faint, but pleasant, and has, in a peculiar de- 
18* 



41 8 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

gree, the subtle associativeness possessed by some other 
wood-flowers, granting us, with the inhalation, visions of 
the banks on which they grew ; of tossing brooks and 
wet, trailing grasses, swinging in the eddying water ; of 
ferny glades, cool in the hottest noons ; of moss-grown 
hollows under shelving rocks ; of bird-call ; the grasshop- 
per's rattle and the whirr of the quail ; — the thousand 
nameless pleasures of Memory that are the mesmeric 
passes with which Imagination beguiles us into forget- 
fulness of sorrow, time and distance. 




CHAPTER XXX. 

Corinne at Coppet, 

HE sail of nine miles up the lake to Coppet, the 
residence, for so long, of Madame de Stael, is 
one of the pleasantest short excursions enjoined 
by custom upon the traveler sojourning for a few days in 
Geneva. 

The village is nothing in itself ; — a mere appanage, in 
olden days, of the Neckar estate. The chateau is reached 
by a short walk up a quiet street — or road — for there is 
neither side-walk nor curbing. The house-front is lake- 
ward, but entrance is had from the street through a paved 
court-yard at the side. A brick wall surrounds this. A 
pair of great gates admit the passage of carriages. We 
were met at each visit, in the lower hall, by a plump 
housekeeper in white cap and black silk, who showed the 
mansion and received our douceur at parting, with gentle 
dignity. The main hall is large and nearly square. Wide 
settees are set against the walls. A bust of Neckar is in 
one corner. A flight of oaken stairs, broad and easy, as- 
cends to the upper hall. The floors are of polished wood, 
as slippery as glass. The salon, entered from the second- 
story hall, is handsomely plenished with antique furniture 
and pictures, mostly family portraits. Mad. de Stael is 
here as Corinne. David was the artist, but the likeness is 
not pleasing. The *' pose " in character is too apparent. 



420 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

The abstracted stare and fixed intellectuality are plainly 
''done to order." The Duchess de Broglie, the daughter 
of the great De Stael, hangs at the other end of the room. 
As chatelaine of Coppet, — a home preferred by her to Paris 
salons^ — her memory is held in grateful esteem by rich and 
poor neighbors. Her face is purely and sweetly womanly, 
with a pensive cast that tells of long-sustained physical or 
mental pain. She had passed Life's prime when the por- 
trait was taken, but was still very lovely. In her youth 
she was far more beautiful and infinitely more amiable 
than her distinguished mother. Beside the mantel is a 
painting — cabinet size — of three grandchildren of Mad- 
ame de Stael, children of her only son by her first mar- 
riage. They died in infancy and early youth, and are 
here depicted sleeping in the arms and against the knees 
of the Saviour. Design and painting are exquisite. 

This salon communicates with another, not quite so large, 
but more interesting. Neckar is here, as at the height of 
his splendid career as the prince of financiers ; saviour of 
the realm from bankruptcy ; reverenced by the sovereign 
and adored by the populace. 

''I shall never cease to regret " — says the daughter to 
whom he was ever the greatest and dearest of men — '' that 
it had not pleased God to make me his wife, instead of 
his child." 

She who was his wife in law, if not in spirit and affection, 
is also in this gallery of family-pictures — a haughty dame 
whose hard, passionless features sustain the stories of the 
severity of discipline practised in the education of her only 
child. In looking from her to the noble, frank gentleman 
who lifted her from the station of governess in a Swiss 
country-house to rank and wealth, one easily compre- 
hends the daughter's fond partiality for one of her pa- 
rents. 



CORINNE AT COPPET. 421 

'^ She is well enough ! " (^' assez Men " — ) Madame Neckar 
would say, with a resigned shrug, when congratulated 
upon her child's brilliant success in literature and society. 
'' But nothing to what I would have made her, had not her 
father interfered." 

The deprecated interference was the result of the deci- 
sion of the best physician in France that the girl was dying 
under the mother's intolerable regimen of study and home- 
etiquette. She was blooming too rapidly in a social and 
educational hot-house, and the doctor summoned by the 
father, earned the mother's enmity by saving the patient's 
life at the price of a long, idle vacation at Coppet. 

Madame Neckar was, prior to her marriage, madly beloved 
by — some say, the betrothed of Gibbon the historian. She 
wedded Neckar to establish herself well in life. To the 
same end she married her daughter, at twenty, to Baron 
de Stael, a Swedish nobleman. 

'' Her mother had done wrong," writes sensible Madame 
de Genlis of Mademoiselle Neckar at sixteen — ''in allow- 
ing her to spend three-fourths of her time with the throng 
of wits who continually surrounded her, and who held dis- 
sertations with her upon love and the passions." 

These disquisitions and their subjects did not enter into 
her calculations in accepting the hand of a man double 
her age. She was weary of her mother's tyranny and the 
restraints of singlehood. Married to this good-natured 
nobleman, who had engaged not to take her to Sweden, 
she could begin to live. The Baron's portrait is in the 
Coppet salon, — at a reasonable remove from his lady-wife, 
as she liked to keep him when both were alive, A portly 
figure and round, florid visage, as blank as to expression, 
as the wall behind him ; a fine court-suit, with plenty of 
gold and thread-lace — these are what the canvas presents 
to us. Diagonally opposite is David's celebrated portrait 



422 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

of Anne-Marie-Louise-Germaine, Baronne de Stael-Hol- 
stein {nee Neckar). A Persian shawl is wound, turban-wise, 
about her head, dark curls falling below it upon her fore- 
head and bare shoulders. Her short-waisted dress is of 
crimson silk, with short sleeves. A dark-blue Cashmere 
shawl falls low upon her skirt, and is caught up by one 
arm. The other is bare, and lies lightly on a table by 
which she stands, the hand drooping over the edge. In 
the right hand, the arm crossing her figure horizontally to 
hold the shawl, is the green spray without which she would 
not talk in company. Captious critics affirmed that she 
held and twirled and gesticulated with the leafy scepter to 
attract admiration to her beautiful hands. These, her eyes, 
and her finely-moulded arms were all that commended her 
to the eye. In form she was clumsy ; her complexion 
was muddy and rough ; her mouth large, and her teeth were 
so prominent that the lips hardly met over them. Yet this 
portrait, not cloaking these defects, is of the queen this 
w^oman undoubtedly was. The head is turned slightly, as 
in listening, — a thing which, by the way, she never did, — 
and a little upraised ; the eyes are full of life and spirit ; 
— the glow of inspiration, as unlike the factitious anima- 
tion of the "Corinne" in the other room, as day-light to 
gas-glare, shines through and from the heavily-cast fea- 
tures. The colors are as rich and fresh as if laid on but 
yesterday. 

Auguste de Stael, her son, at thirty, hangs near, a fresh- 
colored gentilhomme, without a trace of the refined loveli- 
ness of his sister, or of his mother's genius, in his Swedish 
physiognomy. Yet, it is related that, when a lad of seven- 
teen, he pleaded w^ell and bravely with Napoleon for the 
recall of his mother from exile, offering his personal guar- 
antee that she would not meddle with politics were she 
suffered to return to Paris. Napoleon knew better than 



s CORINNE AT COPPET. 423 

to trust her, but he liked the young fellow's fearlessness 
so well that he playfully pulled his ear in denying his peti- 
tion. 

Down-stairs are the library and bed-chamber of Madame 
de Stael, opening by long windows upon balcony and par- 
terre. The bed-room is large, and furnished in a style be- ' 
fitting the fashion, then popular, of using what we regard 
as th.Q penetralia of a home, — to wit — " my lady's chamber " 
— for morning-receptions. The French single bed in a 
distant corner alone indicates that the occupant of the 
apartment really slept there. The walls are hung with 
tapestry, — Gobelin, or a fair imitation of it ; — chairs and 
sofa are embroidered to match, in designs from ^sop's 
Fables. A tall mirror is set between the windows. In the 
center of the room, on a large Turkish rug, is Madame de 
Stael's escritoire, at which she always wrote, a chair before 
it, as she used to have it. It is a cumbrous affair, — long 
and not high, — with pigeon-holes, carved legs and brass- 
handled drawers. The mistress, as Sappho, looks down 
upon it from the wall. We liked this portrait least of all. 
It is a Bacchante, in inflamed complexion and wild eyes. 
The original preferred it to all others. The library ad- 
joins the bed-room, and is lined with book-shelves to the 
ceiling. The floor is polished to glassiness, — the dark 
wood of doors and casement-frames and the ranks of sober- 
hued volumes reflected in it, as in a somber pool. 

We looked back into the shadow and silence from the 
threshold, thinking of the goodly company of intellectual 
athletes who frequented it when the most wonderful wo- 
man of her age held court here as regally as when in Paris. 
De Goncourt described her as a '''■man of genius, by whose 
hands France signed a treaty of alliance with existing in- 
stitutions, and, for a period, accepted the Directory. The 
daughter of Neckar" — he continues — ''forbade France to 



424 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

recall flie line of kings ; she retained the Republic ; she 
condemned the throne." 

Or, as when forbidden to approach within thirty miles 
of Paris, she established her household at precisely that 
distance, and her residence was crowded with guests from 
the Capital. 

*' She pretends " — growled the Emperor — '' to speak 
neither of public affairs, nor of me. But it happens inva- 
riably that every one comes out of her presence less at- 
tached to me than when he went in." 

Hunted to Coppet, she was attended there by Benjamin 
Constant — " the scribe of her dictation ; the aid-de-camp 
of her thought ; the man who almost equaled her in con- 
versational power;" — visited there, by Byron, Schlegel, 
Sismondi, and so many other men of mark and power that 
a cordon of French police was drawn about the house near 
enough to watch all comers and goers without revealing 
their proximity. Madame Recamier braved the danger of 
discovery and the consequent wrath of Napoleon by jour- 
neying thither by post-carriage from France, expressly to 
see her persecuted friend. Arriving under cover of the 
darkness, she tarried but a night, departing early the next 
morning. So soon as the news could travel to Paris and 
a post be sent in reply, a messenger overtook her in her 
Swiss tour with an order from the Emperor, prohibiting 
her return to the metropolis under penalty of fine and im- 
prisonment. 

Above the broad arch of the doorway, within which the 
two women — one as eminent for her beauty as was the other 
for her genius, met and parted, is carved the Neckar coat- 
of-arms. The court-yard is full of flowers, the high iron 
fence separating it from lawn and park, wreathed with 
roses and white jasmine. The central building and two 
wings of the chateau encompass it on three sides. Great 



CORINNE AT COPPET. 425 

iron gates give egress in the direction of the grounds. 
These are extensive and of much natural beauty, A road 
bends around a lawn brightened by beds of geraniums and 
coleas. An oval pond is in the center, a solitary willow 
drooping above it. Beyond pool and circling drive, is an 
old stone bench from which w^e got the best view of the 
house. It is of gray stone, shaded darkly by age. Above 
the second story is a high, sloping roof, pierced by dormer 
windows and many chimneys. The wings are peaked tow- 
ers, capped by quaint wooden knops and spires that may 
be seen far up and down the lake. Masses of chestnuts 
and limes, diversified by a few hemlocks and spruces, em- 
bower the mansion. The undulating line of the Juras is 
visible above it, like another roof-tree. Branching off from 
the wider road are foot-paths, overhung by trees. A swift 
brook is the limit of the lawn at the right. The banks are 
steep and green with turf and the ivy that has strayed 
downward from the tree-boles. Lime and poplar leafage 
make the clear water darkly deep. Foot-bridges span it 
by which one can pass into the meadows beyond. 

" Ah, madame ! " said Chateaubriand, while walking in 
the peaceful demesne with its mistress, — " If the Emperor 
would but banish me, likewise, — to Coppet ! " 

She paced these walks like a caged lioness ; ate her heart 
out in the fine old house yonder. 

" I would rather," she cried, passionately, — ''live in the 
Rue Jean Pain Mollet, with two thousand francs a year, 
than upon one hundred thousand at Coppet ! " 

Her egotism was as magnificent as her genius. For the 
food of one and the display of the other, Paris was the only 
place upon the globe. 

It was while she lived at Coppet that she made her love^ 
match with De Rocca, a young French officer, and an in- 
valid, absent from the army on furlough at Geneva. He 



426 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

was eminently handsome, and she worshiped beauty. The 
suit of a man of twenty-two to a Avidow twenty years his 
senior, was dangerous flattery to one who drew in admira- 
tion as the very breath of life. Other men had paid court 
to her intellect, her position, her wealth. This man loved 
the woiJian he would make his wife. 

" My name belongs to Europe ! " she replied to his first 
offer. 

'' I will love you so well as to make you love me ! " was 
his answer. 

The marriage was a secret, kept until disclosed in her 
will after her death. We gain a glimpse of the morals of 
the day that is a shock to our ideas of decorum, when we 
read in the same paragraph of his residence at Coppet ; 
his companionship in her travels, and that their son was 
born without the revelation of their relation as husband 
and wife. 

It was not until our third trip to Coppet that we were 
able to see the bust of De Rocca in one of the upper rooms 
not shown to strangers while the family are at home. It 
is a beautiful head, with a sweet manliness of look that 
excuses the seemingly absurd union, to susceptible lady- 
visitors. 

Neither then, nor at any other time, could we prevail 
upon any employe of the De Broglies (Madame de Stael's 
grandson noAV owns the estate) to unlock the rusty gate of 
the family cemetery across the road. It is environed by 
neglected commons, and the brick wall is, at least, ten 
feet high. It looks like a fortified forest, so dense is the 
unpruned foliage of the tall trees. We walked all around 
it, each recalling something he, or she had heard or read 
of the burial-chapel of the Neckars so safely hidden in the 
heart of the wood. Of Neckar's tomb and recumbent 
statue, and his wife's at his side. Of their daughter's re- 



CORINNE AT COPPET. 42/ 

quest that her grave might not be made a show-plaee, and 
the pious respect accorded by her son and daughter and 
their descendants to a wish so incongruous with the pas- 
sion for notoriety that swayed her from the nursery to the 
death-bed. 

She had suffered intensely in her latest years. ' Natural 
nervousness was aggravated by the use of opium in such 
quantities to dull severe paroxysms of pain, that it lost its 
effect as a sedative. She seemed to have forgotten how to 
sleep. But her mind retained its strength and clearness. 

" I know now," she said, *' what the passage from life to 
death is. The goodness of God makes it easy. Our 
thoughts become indistinct. The pain is not great." 

The habit of analytical thought was strong to the last. 

In spite of the sternly-barred gates, prying curiosity has 
found its way to the sequestered chapel. At one angle of 
the wall, out of sight of the house, bricks have been picked 
out at interv^als to supply a foothold for the climber, and 
the coping is fractured. A gentleman of our party put his 
toe into a crevice and looked over. 

'^ More than one person has passed in this way," he said. 
''The grass is trampled and the underbrush broken. The 
place is a jungle of matted bushes and large trees." 

He stepped back gently to the ground, and we strolled 
on. 

''* Hie tandem quteseit, quce nunquam quievtt,'' reads her 
tombstone. The embosoming trees ; the lofty wall ; the 
locked gate are not without their meaning. 

God rest her soul in keeping yet more wise and tender ! 




CHAPTER XXXI. 
Chi lion, 

HE Castle of Chillon is a whitey-gray pile, with 
towers of varying heights and black, pointed 
roofs, like extinguishers, clustering about the 
central and tallest. The lake washes the base on all sides. 
A wooden bridge, once a ''draw," joins the fortress to the 
shore. This was the scene of the casualty to Julie's child, 
and his rescue by the mother, resulting in the death of the 
latter, narrated by Rousseau in the concluding chapters of 
"La Nouvelle Heloi'se." 

In spring and summer, the aspect of the storied prison 
is not forbidding. The walk from the steamboat is pleas- 
antly shaded throughout much of its length. Trees grow 
down in the old moat ; pretty creeping plants drop in 
festoons and knots from the top and face of the shore- 
wall ; birds hop and sing in bending branches that dip in 
the water. The "thousand years of snow on high" are 
verdant slopes below. "The white-walled distant town," 
"the channeled rock," "the torrent's leap and gush" — 
are as familiar to Byron's reader as the fields and hills 
about his childhood's home, distinct as a photograph 
painted by Swiss sunshine. 

Tiie scenery near Chillon is the grandest on Lake Le- 
man, reminding one of the snow-capped ramparts of Lu- 
cerne. When, at eleven o'clock of the last day of October, 



CHILLON. 429 

we left the steamboat dock in front of the Hotel Russie in 
Geneva, sky and wave were still and smiling. Mont Blanc 
drew a cowl over his face by the time we touched the Nyon 
pier. But the ugly old town had never been more nearly 
sightly. The five Roman towers of the ancient castle were 
softly outlined against the blue ; the browns, grays and 
blacks of the houses, crowding into the lake, were foil and 
relief to the scarlet and gold of massy vines, the russet and 
purple and lemon-yellow of the trees on the esplanade and 
the steep, winding streets. The cowl unfolded into mant- 
ling mist upon '' the left bank " (our right) as we sailed by 
Vevay, the ^'livest" town on the upper lake. A company 
of school-boys in uniform were drilling in the parade- 
ground close to the wharf, to the music of drum and fife, 
a herd of gamins peering enviously at them between the 
pales of the fence. Window-gardens were flush with pe- 
tunias, salvias and pelargoniums. Woodbine streamed, 
as with living blood, from hotel-balconies and garden- 
walls. The ''grape-cure" was over and the bulk of the 
vintage gathered, but purple bunches hung still among 
the dying leaves, — luscious gleanings for the peasant- 
children trampling the mellow soil with bare toes, and 
cheering shrilly as the boat glided by. Clarens — ''Julie's " 
home — a village of pink, buff and pea-green houses, more 
like painted sugar chateaux than human habitations, har- 
monized better with the autumnal tints of aspen and poplar 
than with their vernal green. The chestnut copse, known 
as the ''^Bosquet de Julie " — where she gave the first kiss to 
her lover, was like fine gold for depth and brilliancy of 
hue. Montreux lies in the hollow of a crescent-shaped 
cove, sheltered from adverse winds from whatever quarter, 
a warm covert for invalids, where roses blossom eternally 
in sight of never-melted snows. The bristly spines of 
mountains are its rear-guard, and upon their lower ter- 



430 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

races are hedges of evergreen laurels, orchards of figs and 
pomegranates. 

Thus far, we had sunshine and color with us, while, upon 
the other shore, the stealing fogs kept pace with our prog- 
ress, — a level line at the lower edge which rested mid-way 
up the sides of the nearer mountains, but gradually en- 
croaching upon the blue above, until, when we stepped 
ashore at Chillon, the sun began to look wan. The days 
were shortening rapidly at this season. To save time, we 
took a carriage at the wharf and drove directly to the 
Chateau through the hamlet that has taken its name. 

*'GoD bless the ingoers and oiitcomei's ! '' is the German 
legend above the entrance, put there by the pious Bernese 
in 1643. 

Our guide was a rosy Savoyard girl in blue skirt, scarlet 
bodice and white apron. Dangling a bunch of ponderous 
keys from her forefinger, she tripped across a -courtyard 
shut in by the tall buildings and peaked roofs, and paved 
with round stones, to a flight of cellar-steps. Just such 
cellar-steps as are used by farmers' waives and dairymaids 
in going to and from buttery and cream-room. . The de- 
scent of six or eight stairs, worn and uneven, brought us 
to the subterranean chapel of the Dukes of Savoy, a long, 
low room floored with roughened stones, the ceiling sup- 
ported by four thick pillars, and so dim, on the windowless 
side, as to cast doubt upon the received theory of its ori- 
ginal uses. Although Religion, as understood and prac- 
tised by thirteenth century lordlings and their vassals, was 
a thing that lurked in and filled the dark places of the 
earth. Next, was a small room, not eight feet square, 
where the condemned by the worshipers in the adjoining 
chapel, passed the night preceding his execution. A niche 
in the rear wall was filled to half its height by a sloping 
ledge, — a rocky bed, inclining upward at the head. On 



CHILLON. 431 

this, the doomed wretch lay until the morning looked in 
upon his misery through the slit in the outer wall. This 
series of vaults was supplied with all the ancient improve- 
ments for executions. In the third apartment a black bar, 
extending across the cell, was the gallows, and in the wall 
near the floor an aperture, now closed with rude masonry, 
finished the drama with business-like promptness, being 
the ^^ chtite" into eight hundred feet of water. 

*' Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls, 
A thousand feet in depth below, 
Its massy waters meet and flow." . 

Two hundred feet, more or less, do not materially alter 
the story, or diminish or increase the horror. 

Bonnivard's prison — the dungeon of Chillon — is beyond 
the cell of execution and the last of the grim suite of base- 
ment state-apartments. The Prisoner of Chillon may have 
been the child of the poet's brain. Bonnivard was not a 
myth. Three times in arms against the ravening beasts of 
war, known by the courtesy of history, as Dukes of Savoy, 
and twice a prisoner, he was, at his second capture, im- 
mured in the Castle of Chillon. Six weary years were 
spent by him in this rocky dungeon. During two of these, 
he was chained to one of the ^' seven pillars of Gothic 
mold " upbearing the ceiling. A stone of irregular shape 
is embedded in the floor at its base. I sat down upon it ; 
put my feet into the hollow worn by his, as he rested thus, 
night after night, day by day, year upon year ! 

The girl had disappeared, in answer to a call from the 
outer-room. Caput leaned against the pillar beside me. 
We could just trace the circle beaten out of the solid stone 
by the prisoner's measured pacing, around the pillar as far 
as the chain would let him go, — then, back again. It is 
plain enough by day, but the light was failing where we 



432 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

were. Caput struck n match and held it close to the 
mournful little track ; — another, that we might decipher 
Byron's name upon the ''autograph column." Then, the 
blue flame expired, and the gloom was deeper than before. 
We hearkened silently to the lap of the lake against the 
foundation-stones, and the moan of the rising wind ; 
watched the glimmering slits, without glass or shutters, 
that admitted light and air. 

** A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave ! " 

quoted Caput. '' It is worse ! The dead do not dream ! " 

*' Or hear ! " I shuddered. '' That dull ' wash ! wash ! ' 
would drive me mad in a week ! " 

Our little maid reappeared, all out of breath, brimful of 
excuses for having left us so long. We were quitting the 
dungeon when I detected gleams, as of soft eyes, in the 
darkest corner. 

'''■ Mes fleiD's ! '' smiled the girl. ''They are safe here 
from frost and need rest after blooming so w^ell all sum- 
mer. I bring them in every winter. Would madame like 
some ? " 

She clipped and broke until I checked her liberality. 
The gleams that had caught my eye were large Mar- 
guerites, with lissome, white petals, that scarcely discolored 
in the pressing and drying. 

" If they were mine I should rather leave them to the 
winds and frost than have them winter here ! " I said, 
touching the branches compassionately. 

^^ Plait-ilV answered the Savoyard, with wide, innocent 
eyes. 

Across the court-yard, upon the ground-floor of another 
building, is the chamber of torture. This, too, has its me- 



?? 



CHILLON. 433 

morial pillar, a slender, wooden post in the middle of the 
room. To this, the prisoner was bound for scourging. 

*' Sometimes they used whips," said the guide. " Some- 
times, " she pointed to scorched places on the sea- 
soned wood. 

The flesh tingles at sight of these dumb records, burned 
in upon the memories of Protestants of that day, as they 
are into the surface of the post. The scourge, in the cases 
of extreme offenders against ducal and ecclesiastical law, 
was of fine wire, tipped with red-hot iron or steel. When 
these missed the back of the victim, they wrote legibly and 
lastingly upon the pillar of flagellation. There were other 
*' ancient improvements" here once, but they have been 
removed. 

One of note was exhibited in another room, — " t/ie oubli- 
ettes^'' sometimes called, ^'the well of promise." Both 
names are significant enough. It is an opening in the 
floor, fenced in with stout rails. Four stone steps slant 
downward from the brink. The eye cannot pierce the ob- 
scurity of the chasm. To the edge of this, then unde- 
fended well, the tried and secretly-condemned prisoner 
was led, blindfolded, and instructed to step down a stair- 
case that would lead him into the outer air and to liberty. 
The abyss is eighty feet deep. The bottom was set with 
sharp knives. 

Upon the second floor are the "family rooms," the 
Duke's bed-chamber and the boudoir of the Duchess. 
This last is not large, and so badly-lighted, that she must 
have required candles on the toilette-table, except in the 
brightest weather. The walls are covered with what ma- 
sons style a "scratch-coat" of mortar. It was hung with 
tapestry when Chillon was a ducal palace. This boudoir 
is immediately above the chamber of torture. When we 
exclaimed at the proximity, the girl explained, naively, 
19 



434 LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS. 

that their Highnesses did not live here all the year, hav- 
ing other residences. Probably, the operation of rack, 
spiked helmet and collar, thumb-screw and scourging- 
post was subject to the convenience of the Duchess. All 
the same, we wondered how she slept with but the plank 
flooring between her and what she knew of, down there. 

The window of her room frames a superb view, on fine 
days, of the ^Svide, long lake," the towering heights of 
the Savoy side, and the ** small, green isle " with its three 
trees. Looking out of it, now, we saw only the water 
darkening under the wreathing mists that had chased us 
all the way from Nyon, and ruffled by the wind. In the 
spacious Knight's Hall to which we went next, we could 
barely discern the stains on the walls that were once 
frescos, and make out the design of the carved mantel 
around the mighty-mouthed chimney-place. The windows 
are all toward the lake and deeply recessed, with broad 
inner ledges. Within one of these embrasures we sat, gaz- 
ing upon the slowly-gathering storm, and listening to the 
*' knocking" — Byron used the right word, — of the sullen 
waves, our little Savoyard attending motionless upon our 
pleasure. We were going no further than Montreux that 
night, and our carriage would wait. We would see — we 
did see — Chillon upon brighter days and in merrier com- 
pany. It suited us to linger and dream, in the weird 
twilight, of what had been in the isolated stronghold, — of 
what, pray Heaven! could never be again. 

The girl brought a lamp to guide us to the Duke's pri- 
vate chapel. The altar is gone, but the choristers' seats 
of carved oak are left. Benches are disposed in orderly 
rows for the Protestant service, held here twice in the 
month. Chillon Castle is still a prison, — a cantonal peni- 
tentiary, — in plainer English — a county jail. Upon each 
alternate Sabbath, the inmates are gathered into the 



CHILLON. 435 

chapel, and one of the neighborhood pastors ministers to 
them. 

In the court-yard we stopped to gather some yellow- 
blossomed moss sprouting between the stones, and our 
Savoyard damsel added to my bouquet of prison-flowers, 
scarlet and browm leaves from the woodbine running 
rankly over the tower in which is the torture-chamber. 
She stood upon the drawbridge as we drove away, a stal- 
wart young turnkey at her side, — who, by the way, had nar- 
rowly missed locking us into the lower cells by mistake. 
Her smiling face, red bodice and white apron were the 
only spots of brightness in the gray-and-black picture of 
the frowning fortress, close-folded in the mists and the 
rolling glooms of the water. 
We thought of the Marguerites in the dungeon. 



FINIS. 



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743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



V The oharm of these nearly perfect stories lies In their 
•xqalslte ^mplloity and most tender humor."— Phuaoblfhia Tii(b» 



RUDDER GRANGE. 

By FRANK R. STOCKTON. 



On« Volume, 16mo, Extra Cloth, attractive bindings, 91-95* 



** Humor like this is perennial." — Washington Post. 

** Mr. Stockton has rare gifts for this style of writing, and has 
developed in these papers remarkable genius." — Pittsburgh Gazette. 

" A certain humorous seriousness over matters that are not serious 
surrounds the story, even in its most indifferent parts, with an atmosphere, 
an aroma of very quaint and delightful humor." — N, Y. Evening Post, 

*'Mr. Stockton's vein of humor is a fresh and rich one, that affords 
pleasure to mature people as well as to youne ones. Thus far, ' Rudder 
Grange ' is his best q&qxV— Philadelphia Bulletin. 

** Rudder Grange is an ideal book to take into the country for 
summer reading." — Portland Press. 

" Rudder Grange is really a very delightful piece of fooling, but, like 
all fooling that is worth the while, it has point and purpose." — Phil. 
Telegraph. 

"The odd conceit of making his young couple try their hands at 
house-keeping first in an old canal boat, suggests many droll situations, 
which the author improves with a frolicsome humor that is all his own." 
^Worcester Spy. 

\ " There is in these chapters a rare and captivating drollery. . , , 
We have had more pleasure in reading them over again than we had when 
they first appeared in the magazine." — Congregationalist, 



•#♦ Th* above book for salt by all booksellers^ or will be sent^ fre^aid^ ufm 

receipt office, by 

\ 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



The best Biography of the Greatest of the Romans. 



GiESAR: A Sketch. 



BY 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. 



One vol., 8vo, cloth, with a Steel Portrait and a Map. 
Price, $2.50. 



There is no historical writer of our time who can rival Mr. Froude in vivid 
delineation of character, grace and clearness of style, and elegant and solid 
scholarship. In his Life of CiBsar, all these qualities appear in their fullest 
perfection, resulting in a fascinating narrative which will be read with keen 
dslight b7 a multitude of readers, and will enhance, if possible, Mr. Froude's 
brilliant reputation. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"The book is charmingly written, and, on the whole, wisely written. There are many 
admirable, really noble, passages ; there are hundreds of pages which few living men 
could match. * * * The political life of Caesar is explained with singular lucidity, 
and with what seems to us remarkable fairness. The horrible condition of Roman 
society under the rule of the magnates is painted with startling power and brilliance of 
coloring. — Atlantic Monthly. 

" Mr. Froude's latest work, " Csesar," is affluent of his most distinctive traits. 
Nothing that he has written is more brilliant, more incisive, more interesting. * * * 
He combines into a compact and nervous narrative all that is known of the personal, 
social, political, and military life of Caesar ; and with his sketch of Csesar, includes other 
brilliant sketches of the great men, his friends or rivals, who contemporaneously with 
him formed the principal figures in the Roman world." — Harper's Monthly. 

"This book is a most fascinating biography, and is by far the best account of Julius 
Caesar to be found in the English language." — London Standard. 

" It is the best biography of the greatest of the Romans we have, and it is in some 
respects Mr. Froude's best piece of historical writing." — Hartford Courant. 

Mr. Froude has given the public the best of all recent books on the life, character 
and career of Julius Caesar." — Phila. Eve. Bulletin. 



*^* For sale by all booksellers .^ or will be sent^ prepaid, upon 
receipt of price , by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



• J-HAWt>RTH'S4- 

BY 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT, 

Author of "THAT LASS O'LOWRIE'S." 



One Vol. 12mo, Illustrated. ------ Price, $1.50. 



The publication of a new novel from Mrs. Burnett's pen has become an 
event of more than ordinary moment, both to the critics and the public; 
and HAWORTH'S fulfills the best anticipations of both. It is in the 
direct line of development of the author's strongest traits, and marks a 
higher point than was reached even in the best passages of her first story. 



CBITICAJD NOTICES. 

'•^ Hazvorth^s is a product of genius of a very high order — a piece of 
work which will hold a permanent place in literature ; one of those mas- 
terly performances that rise wholly above the plane of light literature upon 
which novels are generally placed," — Eveititig Post. 

*' It is but faint praise to speak of HawortJi's as merely a good novel. 
It is one of the few great novels. . . . As a story, it is alive through- 
out with a thrilling interest which does not flag from beginning to end, 
and, besides the story, there is in it a wonderfully clever study of human 
nature." — Hartford Courant. 

''''HawortJi's will unquestionably be acknowledged one of the great 
literary achievements of the day. The chief feature is its intense dramatic 
power. It consists almost wholly of vividly-presented pictures, which so 
impress themselves on the mind of the reader, that the effect is more that 
of seeing the story acted than of reading it." — Boston Post. 

"Conversation and incident move naturally and with perfect freedom, 
yet there is not a page which does not essentially aid in the development 
of plot. . . . The handsome illustrations are in tone and keeping 
with the spirit of the book." — Buffalo Courier. 

"The book is original, powerful, helpful, dramatic, vivid and great. 
Every character is cut with the distinctness of a cameo, and every one is 
unique. . . . The art of the volume is perfect. Every word is needed 
to effect the result. The pictures fit into one another. The whole is a 
faultless mosaic." — Albany Argtis. 



*#* For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, J>reJ>aid, -upon receipt ofJ>rice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



Dr. J. G. HOLLAND'S 

POPULAB NOVELS. 



Each one vol., i2mo, cloth, - - . . . $1.75. 



NICHOLAS MINTURN: 

A Study in a Story. Illustrated. 

"It is unquestionably Dr. Holland's ablest production. The 
characters are sketched by a master hand, the incidents are realistic, the 
progress of events rapid, and the tone pure and healthy. The book is 
superbly illustrated." — Rock Island Union. 

" Nicholas Minturn is the most real novel, or rather life-story, yet 
produced by any American writer, " — Philadelphia Press. 



SEYENOAZS: 

A Story of To- Day. Illustrated. 

** Dr. Holland has added a leaf to his laurels. In Sevenoaks, he 
has given us a thoroughly good novel, with the distinctive qualities of a 
work of literary art. As a story, it is thoroughly readable; the action 
is rapid, but not hurried; there is no flagging, and no dullness." — 
Christian Union, 



ARTHUR BONNIOASTLE: 

A Story of American Life. Illustrated. 

" The narrative is pervaded by a fine poetical spirit that is alive to 
the subtle graces of character, as well as to the tender influences of 
natural scenes. ... Its chief merits must be placed in its graphic 
and expressive portraitures of character, its tenderness and delicacy of 
sentiment, its touches of heartfelt pathos, and the admirable wisdom and 
soundness of its ethical suggestions." — JV. Y. Tribune. 



*** The above hooks for sale hy all booksellers, or will he sent, I>ost or express 
charges paid, upott receipt of the price, hy 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



**Txro as Interesting and valuable books of travel as have 
been published in this country." N£w York Express. 

I>R. FIELD'S Travels Mound the World, 



I. 

FROM THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY TO THE 
G OLDEN HOR N, 

II. 
FROM EGYPT TO JAPAN. 



By HENRTT M. FIELD, D.D., Editor of the IT. 7. Evangelist. 
Each 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, gilt top, uniform in style, $2i 

CRITICAIi NOTICES. 

By George Ripley, LL.D., in the New York Tribune. 

Few recent travellers combine so many qualities that are adapted to command the 
Interest and sympathy of the public. While he indulges, to its fullest extent, the charac- 
teristic American curiosity with regard to foreign lands, insisting on seeing every object 
of interest with his own eyes, shrinking from no peril or difficulty in pursuit of infor- 
mation — climbing mountains, descending mines, exploring pyramids, with no sense of 
satiety or weariness, he has also made a faithful study of the highest authorities on 
the different subjects of his narrative, thus giving solidity and depth to his descriptions, 
without sacrificmg their facility or grace. 

From the Ne-w York Observer. 

The present volume comprises by far the most novel, romantic, and interesting part 
of the Journey [Round the World], and the story of it is told and the scenes are painted 
by the hand of a master of the pen. Dr. Field is a veteran traveller ; he knows well 
•what to see, and (which is still more important to the reader) he knows well what to 
describe and how to do it. 

By Chas. Dudley "Warner, in the Hartford Courant. 

It is thoroughly entertaining ; the reader's interest is never allowed to flag ; tiie 
author carries us forward from land to land with uncommon vivacity, enlivens the way 
with a good humor, a careful observation, and treats all peoples with a refreshing liberality. 

From Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs. 

It is indeed a charming book — full of fresh information, picturesque description, and 
thoughtful studies of men, countries, and civilizations. 

From Prof. Ros-well D. Hitchcock, D.D. 

In this second volume. Dr. Field, I think, has surpassed himself in the first, and 
this is saying a good deal. In both volumes the editorial instinct and habit are conspic- 
uous. Dr. Prime has said that an editor should have six senses, the sixth being 
** a sense of the interesting.*'' Dr. Field has this to perfection. * ♦ • 

From the IXevr York Herald. 

It would be impossible by extracts to convey an adequate idea of the variety, 
abundance, or picturesque freshness of these sketches of travel, without copying a great 
part of the book. 

Rev. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D., In the Christian at Work. 

Dr. Field has an eye, if we may use a photographic illustration, with a great deal of 
collodion in it, so that he sees very clearly. He knows also how to describe just those 
things in the diffsrent places visited by him which an intelligent man wants to know 
•bout. 

•#♦ Tke above books for sale by all booksellers^ or luill be sent, post or excreta 
charges paidy upon receipt of the price by the publishers. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



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